Dr. B. R Ambedar, the Father of the Indian Constituion, said ‘If I find the Constitution being misused, I shall be the first to burn it’. Ambedkar is no longer among us but his ideas live through us – a sense of faith and testament to what the original ‘Idea of India’ was. That dream is dead and it is time to dream a new one. The only other alternate is suspending our walk towards the Begumpuras and Mavelinadu’s of the people and instead descending to Manuvadi – a house of inequality and hate.
I feel like I do not belong to this country, or more precisely what this country has become, anymore. The fact that I have to send this through an encrypted email through a VPN so that I am not tracked probably speaks more loudly than the rest of this article. The other more likely possibility, that the publication might not be allowed to publish this or that this article might be taken down, is also very possible. I do not know if this is a minority view because we are all expected to isolate our issues or because we are fed a constant regurgitation of gleaming new products to buy; or if this is echoed by most of us. How long is the ‘Awaaz’ of the ‘Youth’ allowed to be stifled or meticulously sanitized ? Our courts have failed us, our government is a farce and in the rich diversity of our country, one religion is manipulated for political gains while hiding business interest that benefit only a small section of our society. At what point does one stop coherence of speech and dialogue and erupt into a manic scream of fury? Elections are rigged, wages haven’t risen and the assault on the most vulnerable among us increase day by day. This State was founded on the promise of a social contract; that we believe in its institutions because they serve us. We uphold the constitution and the law because we respect that it advances our joint social progress as a people. But this trust has been broken.
The consecration of a religious monument on the ruins of a demolished mosque with full fanfare from all top politicians, Bollywood celebrities, business entrepreneurs and common folk have heralded the death kneel of secularism, and with it the final dissolution out of what remains of the other words in the preamble left unfulfilled. We are not all equal before the law. The ones with power and capital get away with the most heinous of crimes while the poor are caught up with fines and imprisonment. Forests are being razed in the name of development and Adivasi communities are displaced for the benefit of a few coat-wearing rich men sitting in the Luxury Bars of Delhi and Pune. South Indian states are denied their fiscal autonomy and politicians are bought and sold like in a bazaar. Women and queer people face systemic violence from their families, the courts and the institution of police. Interfaith couples are denied protection from violence of threat to life citing ‘anti-conversion laws’. OTT Platforms and Directors face intimidation from upsetting political powers. Journalists are intimidated and jailed. Student activists and NGOs are threatened, detained, shut down or restricted. Campuses have become jingoistic ultranationalism competing with caste assertion and the assault on academic freedoms. Teachers are scared in classrooms and faculty interviews are decided based on ideological leanings. All institutions of art, academia, bureaucracy, media, cinema, sports and our day-to-day interactions have turned bitter and unsustainable. Even the Institution of Cricket – a sport adored by millions – is at the risk of destruction with increasing business interests, polarization and lack of having selfless empathy and progress. There is a civil war in the state of Manipur with complicity of the State on one side and the ethnic cleansing of the other but we are expected to go on like ‘business as usual’. There is a genocide unfolding in Palestine with the State paying the offending group with $1 Billion in arms trade every year – taxpayer money from me and you, going to fund the bombs dropping over Palestinian children. The people of Kashmir suffer every day, under military occupation that was constitutionally upheld a few months back, but raising a voice is being ‘against the state’ and the ‘integrity of the nation’. If the integrity of a nation is built on the oppression of others – perhaps it is not meant to be a nation to exist.
The Indian Constitution begins with the words ‘We, The People’, borrowed from the U.S. Constitution. It was the manifestation of a civilizational dream that rejected the concepts of a state based on religion while striving for caste and class equality. 75 years down the line and all the promises of the constitution lie desecrated. A new Civilisation is in the making – a Dharmic Hindu Civilisation propped up by ideals of European Ethno-Fascism wielded through the might of Capital. Social Justice, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity lie bleeding on the altar of Indian nationalism – built on the oppression of the masses. Oppressed nationalities claiming federal decentralization of powers is opposed, religious minorities live in fear, journalists are witch-hunted and politicians are bought and sold like cattle. Dalit Liberation Theology uses the works of revolutionary Christianity to oppose systems of injustice but those seeking to exit caste practices either through conversion or marriage are booked under ‘Anti-Conversion Laws’. The roar of the toiling masses march upon our urban citadels that seek to distract the people with cricket matches in stadiums worth hundreds of crores and malls built on the sulms of the poor. How long this fragile balance will hold is a testament to time.
It has come for the time to burn the constitution because it means nothing anymore. If people are punished for the burning of the constitution it will signal some sense of law exists. But the Other Side has also been burning the constitution for decades, bit by bit. The Other Side is not any particular party but rather all of them – they have begun the fire and it is our turn to douse it. If we do not, the fire will consume us and our dreams – our dream of a united, diverse, rich, cultural, pluralistic people.
The battle has been won on the arena of the Indian Constitution. It has been won by those who oppose it’s ideals against those who wanted to preserve it. Now the fight must go beyond. The Law of Manu reigns supreme, alongside sponsorship of the Adanis and Ambanis of New India. The Brahmanical Patriachial Hindutva Fascist Forces have won – it is now up to the rest of us whether they have the final say. The mistake that is made is thinking they make up the majority – they do not. They are led by a minority of caste and class elites that fans the flames of infighting and hate – they engineer conflicts between Hindus against Muslims, Cisgender Heterosexuals against Queer communities, Men against Women. They hide poverty, inflation, decreasing HDI Indexes, falling wages, rising ineqauality and the erasure of our civil liberities in the name of ethno-nationalism, religion and culture wars. They know that if everyone connects their struggles they do not stand a chance. The struggle against hate, inequality, domination and occupation. Are we meant to slip into this insanity and coddle it like a familiar friend not noticing the thorns that tear through our skin and bleed us drop by drop. The threat of violence if you’re a woman on a dark street, the hunger of rising food prices, the lack of safety if the next paycheck doesn’t arrive on time, the rejection of your family if you are a queer person, the unstable future if you aren’t employed in a job and falling hopes of providing for yourself and your family.
‘Let us declare that a State of War does exist and shall exist’, Bhagat Singh wrote before he was hanged by the British, ‘So long as the Indian toiling masses and the natural resources are being exploited by a handful of parasites. They may be purely British Capitalist or mixed British and Indian or even purely Indian. They may be carrying on their insidious exploitation through mixed or even on purely Indian bureaucratic apparatus. All these things make no difference. No matter, if your Government tries and succeeds in winning over the leaders of the upper strata of the Indian Society through petty concessions and compromises and thereby cause a temporary demoralization in the main body of the forces.
‘It may assume different shapes at different times. It may become now open, now hidden, now purely agitational, now fierce life and death struggle. The choice of the course, whether bloody or comparatively peaceful, which it should adopt rests with you. Choose whichever you like. But that war shall be incessantly waged without taking into consideration the petty (illegible) and the meaningless ethical ideologies. It shall be waged ever with new vigour, greater audacity and unflinching determination till the Socialist Republic is established and the present social order is completely replaced by a new social order, based on social prosperity and thus every sort of exploitation is put an end to and the humanity is ushered into the era of genuine and permanent peace. In the very near future the final battle shall be fought and final settlement arrived at. The days of capitalist and imperialist exploitation are numbered. The war neither began with us nor is it going to end with our lives. It is the inevitable consequence of the historic events and the existing environments’
We can seek to uphold the Idea of India we all cherished growing up, or we can watch as our country devolves into a soulless demagogue that wears the shroud of faith to hide the vultures of Capital. The power flows from the people; you cannot dam it from eventually breaching your walls of deceit and hate. A burnt constitution is better than an inept one.
– Editor J