Past perfect, present tense. That’s how the winter session of the Parliament came to an end. Briefly heart of the matter is that the NDA govt introduced one nation one poll in the Lok Sabha entailing heated arguments on the idea of simultaneous elections in Center and States on the precedence of 1951, 1957, 1962 and 1967. Anything on Constitution these days revolves around BR Ambedkar only – a political rather vote bank exigency – misappropriating the contribution of other members of Constituent Assembly.
How is it misappropriation? It’s like one vs 388. He was chairman of drafting committee of the Constitution – one of the 22 committees. Of these eight were major committees and others minor – categories are self-explanatory of the importance. Of these eight major committees, Nehru was chairman of three committees and Dr Rajendra Prasad headed two while the Advisory committee on Fundamental Rights, minorities and tribal and excluded area was headed by Sardar Patel. The task of the drafting committee was to draft the Constitution after taking into consideration of proposals of various committees. This is suffice.
Admittedly Ambedkar was one of the key members of the Constituent Assembly, calling Ambedkar is Constitution and Constitution is Ambedkar is misappropriation of the contribution of other members. No one knows who conferred the title of Father of Constitution of India on Ambedkar. The point being made is that we are a country which categorizes heroes on basis of caste, religion for votebank and party for ideological identification. We have no national heroes. No one belongs to the whole nation here. That’s one problem.
The other problem is even larger. From some time, it’s a practice in Parliament and political discourse to relate everything to the past and the past heroes as if the past was perfect and the present and future is doomed. If you look at the past and read about India’s struggle to freedom, no one hero was perfect. It was the fight to freedom which was nearly perfect – “nearly” because the wings of freedom were cut with pinions of partition on religious lines. Had Gandhi not opposed 1932 Poona Pact which promised separate electorate for Dalits by resorting to fast unto death for its revocation, the faultlines drawn along caste would have been sharper than these are today. Gandhi and Ambedkar were critical of each other in open. Politics has potential to pick and choose the facts, numbers and heroes as per convenience.
Today situation is such that no party can speak with full facts because history is repeating itself. Gandhi was cognizant of the divisive politics of Britishers and the divisive potential of the our people and that’s why he worked on social reforms like inter-religious harmony and abolishment of untouchability before taking to full fledged fight against Britishers. The Gandhi today is doing the opposite of the Gandhi of freedom struggle. As the muslim vote bank is split by regional parties like SP and TMC, Rahul Gandhi is resorting to caste census on the plank of reservation – trying to find newer faultlines for electoral gains or may be draw the faultlines deeper.
On the other side, Mohan Bhagwat is now speaking things which are akin to strategy of Gandhi’s social collaboration through Khilafat movement, swachta and untouchability. Bhagwat stated few days back that Ram Mandir was a matter of faith for the entire Hindu Community but raking up new issues everyday is not acceptable. On his Vijaydashmi speech he said “Valmiki wrote the Ramayana for the entire Hindu society, so everyone should celebrate Valmiki Jayanti and Ravidas Jayanti together. All festivals should be celebrated collectively by the entire Hindu society.” While Bhagwat is certainly doing a REMIX of Mahatma Gandhi, no one knows whose remix Rahul Gandhi is doing.
Gives a sense of déjà vu? Amongst all these remixes, people are yawningly waiting for some originals and national heroes of today.
The writer is Delhi-based lawyer.
