Leave India if you Don’t Believe in the Constitution

What will it take to show people that today’s India is not the “Bharat” of their ancestors, and doesn’t sanction the repressive practices of their erstwhile tribal villages? While many people get nostalgic about a mythical “golden past”, it’s time to realize that this is the 21st century and they either need to get with the program or leave India for some other country whose ideals are more in line with their desires. Like Iran maybe.

Take today’s article on how khap panchayats have magnanimously decided to “allow” inter caste marriages. As if they have any right to allow or disallow anything! And behind all this, they want to bring in a law banning same gotra or same village marriages in the Hindu Marriage act! Like hell that’s going to happen, but how can they even think it will?

It’s very obvious that there are people in today’s India who don’t believe in the values of the Constitution. They don’t think that everyone is equal, they don’t feel that women have equal rights, they don’t sanction adult franchise and according to them parents have the right to dictate the lives of their children even after they have grown up.

Everyone remembers the horrific gang rape of the tribal girl who was supposed to have “dared” to have an affair with a non tribal. Did even the women in the tribe support her? Did they show sympathy? No! Rather, they blamed the girl for her affair.

The question arises, should such individuals remain in India? Aren’t all Indians required to believe in the liberal values of the Constitution, and respect its precepts? True, the Indian Constitution is the largest in the world and has been mercilessly amended, but the basic structure – the “core” – has not changed and never will since the SC is there to watch over it. Living in India, we have a responsibility to adhere to these principles, or leave the country.

The reason I think is that there are many who don’t know what “India” is. They look back at some rosy past lost in the mists and imagine that it was a time of peace and plenty. When non married women were all virgins and knew their place, where children always obeyed their parents and there was none of this irritating “equality” business. They yearn to return to such a time. But they are mistaken – that “Bharat” is and was imaginary and its very idea has been thrown away.

Today’s India is different. A new country. In this sense, “India” never existed before 1947. In fact, it started only on the 26th of January 1950 when India was truly born for the first time. Whatever existed in the past was some other country in the same geographic space. There was no India before independence, after which it had a unified and coherent set of principles based in equality for all, universal franchise and the age of majority where a person is fully responsible for their actions.

The cognitive dissonance arising from what India is to what many people want India to be is the cause of a lot of the trouble we see. Children learn in basic sixth standard civics class about the fundamental rights which their parents may not be aware of! So they go ahead and exercise those rights to the dismay of their elders who curse the Constitution and who wish India was a different country.

Well, all that is gone and done with. India is the Constitution and if you don’t believe in it…please leave. This is not the land for you.

What do you think of this post?
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  • You're an asshole (2)
  • Don't Agree but Interesting (1)

12 thoughts on “Leave India if you Don’t Believe in the Constitution”

  1. The fact that there is even such a thing called the “Hindu marriage act” goes against the Constitution of India. Why can’t India have a common marriage act that is applicable to all citizens of India irrespective of which religion they choose to follow? It is once again an example of the law failing to set expectations. If there is a Hindu marriage act, then it sends out the message that it is ok to ask for clauses under the act that may hold value to Hindus.

    Reply

    • In reply to Clueless

      Yeah. In fact, it lays the basis for differential treatment on the basis of religion in other areas as well. As you rightly point out, it’s about precedent and expectations. The sad thing is that once expectations are set, changing them is political suicide :(

      Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        THe government should have nothing to do with anything at the federal level except ensuring life liberty and property. If I wanted 4 wives it is my right to do so. If I wanted to build a private highway and regulate the laws of that highway, as the private owner of that land I have the right to do so.

        I am speaking about secular governments. Religious governments have every right to regulate marriage since the marriage is under their institution.

        Reply

    • In reply to Clueless

      Why should a secular nation even recognize marriage to begin with? You know who should be in charge of marriages? The religious institutions themselves. So the masjid is in charge of the Muslim weddings for example that is it.

      India’s parliamentary government is overly bloated and is full of socialistic tendencies that just don’t work. Parliamentary government doesn’t work.

      The US is the best (although today it has A LOT of work to do). Life liberty property that is it.

      Reply

  2. While I am (mostly) happy with the Constitution, it was not framed by consensus and could be considered by many to be an imposition. It’s quite possible that the Constitution represents the core values of an elite, and that the voices we consider regressive are the voices that were silenced when the nation-state was built.

    Reply

    • In reply to The Bride

      Yes but what consensus was possible when in 1947 we were a starving,illiterate nation?
      I think the constitution did a pretty good job, gave us the right to elect our leaders, promised secularism and (perhaps, a little too idealistically, socialism).
      In 1950 the elite pretty much pretended that we were this non-aligned poor-but- modern country and 67 years later after all the harping about that we are one big happy country and united in diversity, we’ve come to believe in that unity. So yay them.

      The regressive voices have issues with things that came after the Constitution I think. Like history textbooks that erased any historic hurt to them/us ( I feel a little more ‘regressive’ the more I delve into this stuff), and laws which mocked the secularism that they/we had been promised.

      @Bhagwad, no election/political posts?

      Reply

      • In reply to desidaaru12

        Given the flood of election posts, I’m finding myself a bit overwhelmed :). There’ll be much more interesting stuff to write about once the election is over and the new government is in power!

        Reply

  3. “Today’s India is different. A new country. In this sense, “India” never existed before 1947. In fact, it started only on the 26th of January 1950 when India was truly born for the first time. Whatever existed in the past was some other country in the same geographic space.”

    I think this statement is somewhat ignorant of the Constitution. Did you know the first line of the Constitution is:

    INDIA that is BHARAT,…..

    Yes, we claim that the modern Republic of India is the same glorious Bharat that has existed for millenia. We and only we are the sole inheritors of the legacy. (not Pakis or BDeshis). The spirit of the Constitution is that Bharat has been reborn in the form of a modern republic. It reflects the Hindu ethos of the soul taking various bodies, but the soul in itself is indestructible.

    That which cannot be harmed by weapons,
    That which cannot be singed by fire…

    such is the eternal soul of Bharat. Sometimes Bharat is born as a slave to the Mughal boot, sometimes Bharat is a servant of the British, sometimes Bharat is a sovereign democratic republic. But its the same Bharat.

    Reply

    • In reply to Abhishek

      Since “Bharat” is not defined, we simply have to assume that Bharat is another name for India in a different language. There is no Hindu ethos in the Constitution. If anything, it borrows the best of western thought in encapsulating the fundamental rights. The notion of a democratic republic is itself something the old India didn’t know about.

      In essence, it says that before 1947 (or 1950 depending on your PoV), there was no India. We throw away all our past and all its undemocratic implications and start fresh with a better understanding of statecraft and what it means to be free.

      Reply

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