The event also witnessed the participation of Speaker of Lok Sabha Om Birla, Chief Minister of Haryana Nayab Singh Saini, Haryana Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, and Supreme Court judges such as Abhay S. Oka, K.V. Viswanathan and Sudhanshu Dhulia.
Centred on the theme “Law and the Idea of India”, Tharoor’s address to a room full of law students, academics, and journalists also traced India’s history over the years, emphasising the aspiration of cultural unity throughout the history of the civilisation.
Quoting the late Mohammad Iqbal, polyglot professor and composer of ‘Saare Jahan Se Achha’, Tharoor said, “In the sixth stanza of the song, Iqbal speaks of the idea enshrined in our Constitution with ‘Mazabh nahi sikhata, apas mein ber rakhna, Hindi hain hum! (Religion does not teach us differences. We are Hindustanis)’.”
Underlining that our country’s national motto—emblazoned on the government’s stamp—is ‘Satyamev Jayate’, which translates to ‘the truth alone triumphs’, Tharoor further said, “You can only speak of India in the plural. The Latin maxim, ‘e pluribus unum’, means ‘out of many, one’ and is the United States’ motto. But for India, it should say ‘out of many, many’, given the plurality of ideologies, groups and ways of doing things in our country.”
India chose to be a multi-party democracy despite constraints such as British rule or the Emergency when the government suspended habeas corpus. “At a time when most developed countries opted for authoritarian models, India chose a multi-party democracy,” Tharoor said.
Speaking on the principle of pluralism, which has shaped the idea of India, he said, “Pluralism is the reality of India, and it is reaffirmed by its history. India is shaped by Hindu tradition, along with written scriptures of religions, like Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, and two centuries of British rule,” he said, adding that a common ethnicity or geography does not unite Indians.
Partition, he said, “hijacked” the subcontinent’s natural geography. As for the aspect of ethnicity, India accommodates diversity, with Indian Bengalis being likely to have more in common with Bangladeshis than they do with Bangaloreans, he added.
Emphasising that the idea of India is not based on a particular religion either, he said, “Hinduism, the largest religion here, has no common established church. Indian nationalism is the nationalism of an idea—that, we call, an ever-ever land, emerging from an ancient civilisation, united by a common history, and sustained by a democracy under the rule of law.”
He also reminded the audience that the Constitution’s chief architect, B.R. Ambedkar once said, “However good a Constitution may be, if those implementing it are not good, it will prove bad. However bad a Constitution may be, if those implementing it are good, it will prove good.”
Emphasising that the ideas of fraternity, unity and solidarity in social life are indispensable to the idea of India, Tharoor further said, “We are a land of belonging rather than of blood. We celebrate differences in caste, culture, cuisine, etc. It’s the idea that a nation might accommodate and even celebrate differences of caste, creed, colour, culture and costume. The reason we have survived for nearly eight decades is we maintained consensus about some ground rules of disagreement. Today, those in power seem to be spoiling that, and sadly, that’s why there is a need to reaffirm it.”
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On UAPA & minorities
Recalling Ambdekar’s 25 November 1949 address on the eve of the Constitution’s adoption, Tharoor said that equality, fraternity and the feeling of Indians being one were emphasised in the Constitution, despite the prevailing backdrop of the caste system in those times.
Our forefathers drafted this kind of a Constitution embodying the values of equality, fraternity and secularism, Tharoor said, adding, “Over the last decade, however, the idea of India, woven together by a secular pluralism has been threatened. Dissent in particular has been villainised over the recent years and dissidents charged under draconian anti-terrorism laws.”
Despite acquittals in 97% of the UAPA cases, the laws still exist, he added, labelling the custodial deaths of 84-year-old father Stan Swamy and professor G.N. Saibaba a “collective blot on our consciousness”.
Tharoor said such instances fly in the face of the founding fathers’ vision of establishing a liberal and constitutional democracy in postcolonial India—an impoverished and illiterate land saddled with generations of mostly archaic traditions, besides the caste system and deep inequalities.
Tharoor also pointed out that the idea of making India a liberal democracy was in line with contemporary schools of thought, drawing on universally accepted principles such as equality before the law and the rule of law, among others.
Quoting author Madhav Khosla, he said that the “Constitution makers’ intention behind liberal constitutionalism was to allow Indians to arrive at outcomes agreeable to free and equal individuals and place them in the realm of individual agency.”
Reiterating Ambdekar’s point that Constitutions act as a check on the state’s power, he said the challenge lies in reconciling state power with the popular mandate. Tharoor, in a recall of the Constitution architects’ concerns, said, “Our rights cannot be taken away by any legislature simply because they have a majority. The principle of democracy mandates the idea—whoever captures power will not be free to do what he likes with it.”
Saying that theConstitution-makers rejected separate electorates and religion-based reservations, intending to discard a framework built on regional and religious identity while replacing it with a citizenship model centred around the people’s political aspirations in the long run,he said, “The idea of majority and minority was to be constantly modified.”
Pointing out that both V.D. Savarkar and Muhammad Ali Jinnah pushed for the idea that Hindus and Muslims are two distinct persons, requiring two nations, he said, “The father of Hindutva, V.D. Savarkar, who was largely inspired by the fascist movements in pre-world war Europe, in his 1923 book, said, ‘The holiest shrines of other religions being elsewhere weaken their claim to being equal citizens of India while this land truly belongs to Hindus, who have their origins here.’”
On the other extreme of this bigotry, Muhammad Ali Jinnah capitalised on Muslim anxieties about the Hindu majority subjugating them after the British departed for good, Tharoor said. “Patriots inside the assembly—like Ambedkar and Nehru—and outside the assembly—like Gandhi—rejected these notions. But in 1940, the Lahore Resolution formalised the demand for Pakistan, becoming the final nail in the coffin.”
Saying that minorities are “an explosive force”, which, if erupted, can blow up the whole fabric of a state, the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha MP went on to give examples in Europe’s history to emphasise his point. “However, in India, the minorities have agreed to place their existence in the hands of the majority. They have loyally accepted the rule of the majority, so it is the duty of the majority to realise its duty to not discriminate against the minorities.”
On UCC & secularism
A democratic rule cannot be predisposed to the prevailing loyalties of a religious disposition, Shashi Tharoor said while reminding the audience that the Constitution of India does not recognise any particular religion but only the individual. “Since it came into force nearly 75 years ago, our Constitution has been amended over 100 times. Many may consider this a weakness, but it’s a sign that it is fluid and flexible. Indisputably, the parliament has largely wielded its power to broaden the idea of India by upgrading Directive Principles of State Policy to rights, making education a fundamental right, or bringing in the Right to Information Act.”
Lamenting the retention of British-era laws such as sedition and criminalisation of homosexuality—under the erstwhile Section 377—he vocally raised his opposition to such laws. “Several laws the British abandoned at home were still retained by us—like the criminalisation of homosexuality and the sedition laws. While some may argue that the offence of sedition was struck off the statute books, Section 150 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita makes it evident that the offence has been split into vaguely defined offences.”
Asked about the UCC, Tharoor said, “Although as an idea, the UCC is not a bad one, Nehru had pointed out that when you impose it on people, it becomes challenging. All communities have their personal laws, so you are taking that away from the people. As long as you don’t impose it, it’s very much within the spirit of the rule of law.”
Tharoor also said that India’s Constitution is “very much a secular Constitution” while recalling a particular plea before the Supreme Court that sought to remove the words “secular” and “socialism” from the Constitution.
“Strictly speaking, if you look at the word, it means distancing oneself from religion, but that is quite the opposite of our notion of secularism—where all religions are celebrated. Pluralism is a more apt term, I would think. Secularism means moving away from religion, but 97% of Indians have faith in religion as opposed to some European countries with 20% or less. By imposing something on a diverse country, you won’t get unity but disunity,” said Tharoor, elaborating on India’s idea of secularism.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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