M.Y.Siddiqui
India celebrates 76th Republic Day on January 26, 2025 to mark the enforcement of the Constitution of India on that day in January 1950. Results of General Elections to the Lok Sabha (House of the People) on June 4, 2024 have shown shift from over ten terminal years of inhumanity, bigotry, unspeakable cruelty, about the deliberate, full throttled, organized and hate filled othering of Muslims, about complicit institutions, a partisan judiciary and law enforcement machinery, to the return of the trappings of constitutional parliamentary democracy. But the basic practices engendered by our freedom are not what democracy is all about-they only provide the preliminary groundwork for the more difficult tasks. Miracle of people’s power reduced the brute single party BJP majority, making the PM depend on the crutches of three supporting regional parties to form a coalition NDA union government, shrinking the 56-inch wide chests of the fascists duo, in the process curbing arbitrary exercise of power by tyrannical autocrats.
Some new development since election results includes 500 SEBI employees’ complaint to Finance Ministry on toxic work culture under Madhabi Buch, Thane magistrate’s court cancelling bail to the cow vigilantes who brutalized a 72 years old Muslim, Subhash Chandra of Zee TV Entertainment issuing a press release alleging corruption against the Chairperson of SEBI, withdrawal of broadcast bill designed to gag social media, especially the audacious professional journalists of substance and at that the pride of India, referring the Wakf Amendment Bill to Joint Parliamentry Committee for a thorough public scrutiny, the One Nation One Election Constitution Amendment Bill, designed to establish presidential form of dictatorship in the country to serve RSS Pariwar’s Hindutva agenda, withdrawal of lateral entry of personnel in middle level central services through mere interview to bring in RSS affiliated persons (a backdoor entry), showing emergence of considerable checks and balances on the dictators.
This could not have happened from 2014 t0 2024, as during that period, India’s democracy was under assault, happenings like the kind already mentioned that caused embarrassment to the despotic regime, were either nipped in the bud or the news about them squelched before they hit the media. Everything changed on June 4- that red-letter day when the emperor Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, and the people recovered their freedom. Life has come a full circle. Life without liberty is like a body without spirits. Lok Sabha election results of June 4 that gave a fractured mandate marked the day of deliverance for all Indians who believe in the idea of India of Oneness of Nation and Oneness of People Amidst Their Diversity, the core composite culture that our founding fathers envisaged. One realized that freedom from fear is not just good for the soul but for one’s physical well being as well. Freedom is an unmitigated good.
It was a nameless terror, a hideous spider whose invisible web runs right through the whole of society that demanded unquestioning obedience and went to the absurd extent of citizens banging thaalis and lighting diyaas on command. Everyone was positioned as either a victim or a supporter of the regime. The grim period showed up people for what they are, ugly, bad or good. At the top of the list of despicable collaborators were the potentially most powerful segment of what constitutes civil society, the self serving cowardly middle class ever ready to kowtow to the regime for personal gains, informing on their fellow citizens, reveling in the hedonistic consumer culture and heedless of the injustice and misery all around. Equally reprehensible was the conduct of the corporate honchos and the business community in general who sold their souls to the tyrannical regime in tandem with their political benefactors, fattened off the land.
The blinding light of freedom has dispelled the darkness that had enveloped India for ten years. However, anti-minorities rhetoric with a strident targeted violence aided and abated by communal, divisive, religious polarizing targeted attacks against them (minorities) are continuing with great force by the Sangh Pariwar ruled states and the fascists duo at the Centre to serve the RSS agenda with impunity. Yet, the powerless, the poor and the dispossessed rescued our democracy, like in 1977, when they booted out the despotic Indira Gandhi. Once again, the poor of India delivered a verdict to save India and its Constitution. As a result, Our chaotic vibrant democracy has come roaring back after being on the ropes for years, a rejuvenated opposition fortified by their impressive numbers, have taken Parliament by storm that pummeled the ruling coalitions with thunderous jabs.
It is no longer a one-way street. Shackled by the constraints of a coalition, the compulsive authoritarian has been forced into submitting to the bumpy dynamics of democratic functioning with its checks and balances. Legislation that hitherto was cleared by an imperious Parliament without scrutiny and discussions has now hit hard rock. The judiciary, for the most part, a covert accomplish of the authoritarian regime, has responded haltingly to the gust of freedom that has blown people’s way. Its recent cheering judgments that “bail is the rule and jail the exception” even in PMLA and UAPA cases were begging to be ordered for years. So far, the half hearted, ambivalent and even contradictory judgments by the Supreme Court of India have not adequately served the cause of justice. The Supreme Court’s apathetic silence in the face of the SEBI-Adani scandal revelations is worrying. Despite irrefutable evidence that both the expert committee that it had appointed to examine the Hindenburg allegations as well as SEBI were guilty of dereliction in the remit entrusted to them, the Supreme Court has so far maintained a puzzling aloofness. Hopefully with democracy back on track, the Supreme Court will be under increasing public pressure to do the right thing by the law.
The tepid electoral outcome for the Sangh Pariwar has restored some sanity in the External Affairs Ministry, which for ten years functioned as the PM’s publicity bureau, single-mindedly focused on promoting the Vishwaguru and his business cronies. Despite the electoral setback initially, PM acted like it was business and junket times as usual. But the lukewarm reception at he G7 summit in Italy, and the universal criticism of his junkets to Russia, Ukraine, non-invitation to the swearing in ceremony of his much touted personal friend President Donald Trump, many other countries, marred by strident worldwide media criticism, have humbled the dictator. The image of the self-proclaimed peace mediator Vishwaguru lies in tatters, proving that democracy is an unending exercise in bringing to heels the arrogant. To quote Babasaheb Ambedkar, “Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life, which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life”.
Sadly, we are nowhere near the kind of democracy we want to be! Only a society that has overcome prejudice, hatred and ensures equal treatment to all citizens can claim a truly just society. Regrettably, the noble ideals set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution, which spells out the resolves “to secure justice, liberty and equality for all citizens and promote fraternity among all” remain more elusive than ever. Even during the debates marking the adoption of the Constitution of India in November 1949 by the Constituent Assembly, in the Winter Session of Parliament in 2024, the ruling NDA defended the Constitution with a 14-point resolutions by the PM pledging allegiance to the Constitution and his promises to implement it in letter and spirit, while the opposition lambasting the RSS Pariwar and how it subverted the Constitution and the system of rule of law based democratic governance, both the Houses of Parliament agreed that the Constitution has ensured a rightful progress of the nation notwithstanding some aberrations here and there.
Of the cherished values that attest to our commitment to secular (religion-neutral) humanism, the greatest and most neglected is fraternity. Regrettably, in the last ten years under PM, our worst impulses were unleashed. Fear, hate and insecurity consumed us all. We are more divided than ever. There is little empathy and decency in our public discourse. The persecution and lynching of Muslims and Christians is almost a daily occurrence even today and it no longer excites interests. There is no outrage. What is at stake is not just our democracy, but also our survival as a united republic. At this dangerous time, India needs a leader who can think beyond him and bring people together, unifying them amidst their diversity instead of dividing them to retain power. India certainly does not need any more PM leadership style!