Commitment to the Constitution – Congress style
- By : Anirban Ganguly
- Category : Articles
Ironically, Congress leader, Mallikarjun Kharge, did not see the Italian sitting beside him and instead, pointed his widely gesticulating finger at the treasury benches terming the BJP leaders as foreigners who came to India, displacing him and those like him who were original inhabitants of the land. Sadly, though understandably, this is the leadership Congress professes to offer to aspirational India, a leadership that bases its political arguments on outdated and long discarded colonial theories that were mainly meant to keep India and Indians divided. But then the Congress has always furthered its politics – post independence – based on divisiveness.
It also to be noted how acceptable Kharge’s bluster of “bloodshed” was to the ‘award wapsi and intolerance’ brigade – who didn’t even utter a whimper at his threat made from the sacred floor of Parliament. Such acceptability stems from the fact that the statement was made in the presence of Kharge’s political godmother, Sonia Gandhi, herself the originator of the “maaut ka saudagar” model of public address. Had such a statement been made by a BJP leader, with Modi by his or her side, hell would have broken losoe with a few more awards being returned and a few more statements being made to the international media on how the atmosphere had deteriorated in India. Actually, the tolerance of Congress’s and its first family’s trampling of democratic rights, the Congress leaders’ threats of retribution are all forgiven by these same brigade essentially because their class-hatred for Modi allows them to side with anyone or any situation that is seen or read as being a challenge to his popularity, acceptability or legitimacy.
The Communists have also been silent on Kharge’s blood-curdling outbursts essentially because they continue to harbour a soft corner for violence that challenge constitutionalism – after all that is how they welcomed the birth of independent India by mounting an armed resistance to her first national government. Secularism as forced and interpreted by the Communists and popularised by their cadre-intellectuals has come to mean in India today to be caustically anti-religious and anti the religious sentiments of the majority. Secularism in India, as popularised by the Communists and their card carrying interpreters has manifested itself through denigrating, lampooning, negating and despising the religious belief and sentiments of the majority. Rajnath Singh was therefore right in his articulation when he talked of the abuse of the term secularism. Naturally it raised the hackles of the comrades – after all it is they who have been at the forefront of abusing the term most to suit their dialectical fantasies.
Returning to our point on the Constitution debate, it is too much to expect the Congress to seriously participate in a debate that reiterates the nation’s commitment to the Constitution. Having battered thra Gandhie Constitution at every given opportunity – starting with the 1st Amendment through which Nehru sought to curb the freedom of the press and free speech and continuing up until 1975 when Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency trampling on the Constitution, on free speech, free association, in short on the democratic aspirations and ethos of India. Therefore it was a profoundly irony laced moment when Sonia Gandhi began delivering her halting homily on how endangered the Constitution was. It would be useful to recall that Dr Ambedkar’s speech that Sonia Gandhi cited had many aspects that very well applied to her mother-in-law and to her grandfather-in-law.
On the outside-insider-dasyu and Aryan position, Dr Ambedkar, like Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo before him was quite forthright in his debunking. It may be instructive to briefly look at it, especially for the benefit of the vociferous leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP).
Dr Ambedkar in his work “Who were the Shudras?” devoted one complete chapter to discussing Shudras versus Aryans and observed, that, “The theory of (Aryan) Invasion is an invention. This invention is necessary because of a gratuitous assumption that the Indo- Germanic people are the purest of the modern representation of the original Aryan race. The theory is perversion of scientific investigation; it is not allowed to evolve out of facts. On the contrary, the theory is preconceived and facts are selected to prove it. It falls to the ground at every point.” It is interesting to note that Dr Ambedkar roundly rejected the Aryan Invasion Theory more than 60 years ago.
In the series “Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings & Speeches”, Volume 7, Page-85 Dr Ambedkar’s conclusion is stark: 1. “The Vedas do not know any such race as the Aryan race”, 2. “There is no evidence in the Vedas of any invasion of India by the Aryan race and its having conquered the Dasas and Dasyus, supposed to be the natives of India”, 3. “There is no evidence to show that the distinction between Aryans and Dasas and Dasyus was a racial distinction”, 4. “The Vedas do not support the contention that the Aryans were different in colour from the Dasas and Dasyus.”
The points Dr Ambedkar makes can be read in more detail – and they are elementary reading for all those who profess to know his political views and philosophy.
The CPP may thus consider changing its leader or try and educate the ones like him to a greater degree for the sake of a more genuine and balanced parliamentary approach. But perhaps that is too much to expect from a party which has, in any case, lost all ideological moorings and directions.
