WE NEED CONSTITUTIONALISM
Today while thinking about current scenario of society I felt how much we have to suffer due to bad policies and misplaced priorities. When one goes through the speech given by Pt. Nehru in the Constituent Assembly while presenting the Objective Resolutions which later grew into the Preamble of our Constitution a thrill is experienced and heart is filled with empathy for our fellow countrymen. Each and every word of the Preamble has been so well thought of that the Preamble gives a unique world view to us. But as time passed we have failed to live up the expectations of our Constitution . It's admitted fact that we have not moved in the direction desired by the Preamble of our Constitution. But never in Indian Politics there has been any debate on public platforms like on the floor of our legislatures, in our leaders' speeches, in election campaigns, in movies, etc. The fact is that in our Country party politics grew faster than constitutionalism and the rapid growth of the earlier overshadowed the later.
Today when our sight falls on our society we realize that with the growth of the size of economy more and more citizens have become less and less affluent, with the growth of the state power , activity and penetration more and more citizens have become less and less empowered. Recently when Covid 19 was seriously threatening the prosperity of citizens a few more Indians could make their way into the list of billionaires , but at the same time millions were losing their livelihood and were falling below poverty line. The ideas of justice and equality as enshrined in the Preamble and in the text of the Constitution itself were not being tested in the light of our Constitution by the responsible authority like state or by the public in genral. In the modern political system it's expected that the state power is subjeced to popular will of the common citizen but in reality contrary to this expected pattern new social norms have been crafted with such due diligence that common citizens have been made subservient to the state political clout and economic utilitarianism . Not a single political party , or an important leader of any political stream has ever raised a question about loss incurred by the common citizens in the course of development of the State and the market . It appears financial pauparization has been accepted by the demoralized citizens as an essential qualification for growth. Some of the recent comments by some power brokers about price rise on Twitter or on some other media platforms confirm that the state is more than complacent about citizen's pathetic condition due to loss of employment and decrease in income, rather say state appears to be apathetic to the citizen's concerns and at the same time public in general is also more than convinced that nothing is going to be improved and so they don't need to be agitative. Along with the financial hardships people also have fears of state's masculinity and patriarchy that if they express their grievances, such grievances will not only be unheared but they will be implicated also in the name of threat to national security. The same was felt widespread during Covid time in some states. State's hegemony is also in the form of its efforts to ration the growth of common sense of citizens by curtailing the sources of information. People are compelled to know only those things which the state wants. Similarly people are removed from the arena of discussion. The state tries to control everything.
All these practices are against the values, spirit and provisions of the Constitution but the most disturbing aspect is that citizens have now no forum for their grievance redressal. There has not been any significant curtailment in the power of judiciary but more dangerous means have been adapted to weaken judiciary. It's said that the power of judicial review is a basic structure . This means the Court can examine the constitutionality of any law made. But we see courts have been deffering important constitutional issues and thereby giving free hands to the state to impose it's will in blatant unconstitutional ways.
Under such circumstances India needs constitutional activism in letter and spirit .
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