Document of India

Document of India

Posted online: Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 2105 hrs IST

The Indian Express

One of the striking ironies of Republic Day celebrations is that the Constitution that occasioned this day in the first instance, figures nowhere in these festivities. Yet the Constitution arguably remains modern India’s most distinctive and enduring achievement. This document is the foundation of one of the grandest political experiments in history: the Indian republic. It is one of the few post-colonial constitutions that have had such a long uninterrupted shelf life. If India has endured as a nation, a good deal of the credit must go to the delicate balancing acts our Constitution embodies. The manner in which it created new avenues of participation was the harbinger of a slow but sure social revolution. At the time the Constitution was written, doubts were expressed about its originality. But in retrospect, the product that emerged was distinctively Indian, thoughtfully rooted in the needs and aspirations of the country.

The French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the American Constitution have been extensively memorialised. The Constituent Assembly that produced our Constitution deserves to be remembered at least as much. No one going through the debates can fail to be inspired by the seriousness of this enterprise and its moral clarity. The idea that all citizens are free and equal; the aspiration that all basic needs necessary for human dignity be met; and a conception of citizenship and public reason that enjoined people to rise above narrow identities were all radical ideas. The makers were under no illusion that these will not be accomplished facts for a long time to come. These were, rather, continuing tasks that each generation had to strive to accomplish. In so far as we remember the Constitution, we remember what we stand for.

If cricket and cinema have provided a cultural glue to the nation, the Constitution is perhaps the only shared normative vocabulary India has. Undoubtedly, the Constitution does not resolve our deep political differences. But the very fact that these differences have to now use the framework of this Constitution is an extraordinary achievement. There is some truth to the charge that there is a good deal of constitutional illiteracy in the country. The semantic meaning of terms in the Constitution has often been stretched beyond belief; political parties have used it as an instrument of their interest, amending it once too often or simply ignoring it. But the Constitution always bounces back. It reminds us that we are not merely a majoritarian democracy, but a republic.