People Making ‘Save Constitution’ an Electoral Issue Bodes Well for Country

People in general and Dalits and minorities, in particular, are alarmed by the pronouncements of some BJP leaders, such as Anant Hegde, Lallu Singh, Arun Govil, and Jyoti Mirdha, that the Narendra Modi government, on registering victory in 400 plus Lok Sabha seats, would change the Constitution. Therefore, in several states, such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Bihar, these sections of the population are exerting themselves to make the issue of saving the Constitution a key electoral issue.

People Defend the Constitution

The ‘Save the Constitution’ issue has gained a huge momentum with Opposition parties and their top leaders rallying appealing to people not to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to protect the Constitution, embodying Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s vision.

The Dalits, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes apprehend that the clamour for changing the Constitution would pave the way for dispensing with the policies of reservation and affirmative action. These policies had benefitted them in gaining access to government jobs which, especially during the past 10 years, are shrinking after the accelerated takeover of public sector undertakings by private entities, where there is no reservation. 

The minorities, especially the Muslims, fear that if the Constitution is changed or a new text replaces the existing one, the provisions mandating safeguards for them and their status as citizens equal to all other fellow Indians, regardless of their faith, would be scrapped. People have perceived that the Modi regime, and the combination of BJP-RSS, pose an existential threat to the Constitution and feel that it can be saved by making it a crucial election issue and appealing people to vote against BJP.

Modi and Shah’s Silence on Call for Hindu Rashtra  

India’s Constitution came into force on January 26, 1950, and people coming forward to defend and save it by making it a poll issue is unprecedented. Sensing that people’s anger against the statements of some BJP leaders on changing the Constitution would cause electoral loss to the party, Prime Minister Modi has issued multiple statements in his election campaign, expressing his commitment not to change the Constitution.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, with hardly any track record of upholding secularism, also went out of the way to assert that even the word ‘secular’ in the Preamble of the Constitution would not be deleted.

Such statements by Modi and Shah sound hollow in face of several BJP leaders participating in the so-called Dharam Sansads (religious parliaments), stridently issuing calls to establish Hindu Rashtra, which flouts secularism, held by the Supreme Court as an integral part of the basic structure of the Constitution.

For instance, both Modi and Shah maintained a deafening silence when Aseem Goel, BJP MLA from Haryana, took a pledge to make India a “Hindu Rashtra” and “make or take sacrifice for it”  on May 3, 2022 at Ambala. What Goel did was completely contrary to the oath he took as an MLA, bearing true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India, mandating neutrality of the State to religion and celebrating religious pluralism, which negate the very idea of Hindu Rashtra.

When Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, on multiple occasions, described India as a Hindu Rashtra in complete contravention of the constitutional vision of our country anchored in secular ideals, neither Modi nor Shah uttered a single word disapproving it. Like a legislator of the State Assembly, a Chief Minister also takes oath owing allegiance to the Constitution, which has nothing to do with Hindu Rashtra.

Modi, who often extolls B R Ambedkar and accuses Congress of not honouring him, is in true sense disparaging his legacy, anchored in his firm rejection of Hindu Raj, which he described as a “calamity” and appealed to people to resist it with all their might.

Did Modi check Adityanath, who termed India a Hindu Rashtra? In not taking a stand against him, the PM failed to defend the Constitution and negated the vision of Ambedkar. Therefore, his statement during the election campaign that even if Ambedkar comes back, he cannot change the Constitution, sounds empty and meaningless.

RSS’s Attack on the Constitution

Modi was part of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as its pracharak (propagator) and a peep into history reveals that the RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, in its editorial of November 30, 1949, dismissed the Constitution, adopted and enacted on November 26, that year, by stating that “the worst about the new Constitution of Bharat is that there is nothing Bharatiya about it”.

Noting that elements of British, American, Canadian, Swiss and sundry other Constitutions were used in drafting India’s Constitution, the editorial charged that the laws enunciated in Manusmriti were never found useful by the drafters to be included in it.  Modi, hailing from RSS, is imbued by that vision anchored in Manusmriti, which was burnt by Ambedkar for its regressive contents upholding caste system based on graded social inequality.

Therefore, Modi’s pronouncements that his government would not tinker with the Constitution if voted back to power for a third term with 400+ Lok Sabha seats, should be taken with a huge pinch of salt and seen from the perspectives of the editorial in the Organiser.

Attack on Basic Structure of the Constitution

Modi and Shah’s statements in defence of the Constitution lack conviction in the context of the recent attack by the then Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju and Vice President of India Jagdeep Dhankar on its basic structure. The Supreme Court, in its judgement in Keshvanand Bharti case in 1974, had held that the basic structure of the Constitution cannot be amended by Parliament. Both of them remarked that Parliament was supreme and even the basic structure could not come in its way to alter the Constitution. Such attacks on the Constitution by high constitutional functionaries and the silence of Modi and Shah signal an ominous feeling that the Constitution could be changed.

President KR Narayanan Saved Constitution  

It is worth noting that whenever BJP gets ensconced in power at the Centre, it points fingers at the Constitution. For instance, during the tenure of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a plan was mooted to review the Constitution. Then President of India K R Narayanan came in the way of the implementation of that plan when in his speech delivered on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of the Republic in 2000, he sharply called for examining if the Constitution had failed us or we have failed the Constitution. Those articulations of Narayanan literally forced Prime Minister Vajpayee to shun the idea to review the Constitution and instead, he appointed a commission to review the working of the Constitution.

At present, no high constitutional functionary is standing in defence of the Constitution at a time when there is serious apprehension that the Modi regime is out to alter the Constitution. So, people have made the issue of ‘Saving the Constitution; an election issue and are mobilising political parties and civil society to salvage it from repeated attacks by the powers that be.

Modi’s Defence of Unconstitutional Electoral Bonds

People are seriously mindful of the recent Supreme Court verdict declaring the Electoral Bond (EB) scheme of the Modi regime unconstitutional, and Modi himself defending EBs  on April 1, 2024, claiming that that it allowed tracking the donors and the amount of funds given. When a Prime Minister defends EBs, held by the apex court as unconstitutional, how on earth can one believe his words that he would not alter the Constitution on securing 400 plus seats?

Therefore, people making an electoral issue of ‘Saving the Constitution’ indicates that they are now in the forefront to defend it and defeat those who are attacking. This augurs well for our democracy, the Constitution and the constitutional vision of India.

S N Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan. The views are personal.