Faizabad or its twin-city Ayodhya, has a powerful symbolism for the ruling ideological persuasion of the nation. Just before the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, its back-to-back winning Member of Parliament had made a chilling comment, “The government can be formed with 272 MPs in the Lok Sabha…… But to make amendments to the Constitution, or to have a new Constitution, we need more than two-thirds majority”. He said what was already getting bandied about in the social media, and it was also statistically aligned to the “abki baar, 400 paar” (this time, over 400), spiel.

He soon retracted. But tellingly, he lost the election and the disquiet about the significance of that loss was significant. A new political landscape emerged with many implicit and sobering ‘messages’ for the victorious coalition. Soon thereafter, the Constitution became the leitmotif of opposition concerns with their MPs brandishing copies in hand. The dispensation of the day hit back by amplifying the serendipitously timed 50th anniversary of the ‘Emergency’ to countenance their own commitments to the Constitution. These competitive counteraccusations of compromising (current or historical) on the constitutional spirit have spurred the Constitution on to the national centerstage.

This can only augur well for the foundational ‘Idea of India’, irrespective of which partisan side rules. Officially, all political parties are on the same page to defend the sanctity of the Constitution, though it is the worst kept secret that changes to the same could support divergent partisan positions and preferences more effectively. But it is no cakewalk, certainly not any more. Morality aside, the Constitution has also got enmeshed with identity politics of the day, as most followers of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar have vested their own political identity to the protection of the Constitution ~ any changes to the same will be construed as an affront to their identity, hence provoking an electoral reaction.

Results of the 18th Lok Sabha have also exposed the limits of simplistic majoritarianism, as the overarching umbrella of unitary religion didn’t seem tenable, given the inherent ‘divides’ within all religious denominations. Thankfully, such fragmentation works to protect the overall Constitutional spirit. It is important to sift the wheat from the chaff of differentiating between an “amendment” as opposed to fundamentally “changing” the Constitution. It manifests in the partisan intent, championing the same. That vital difference can be gauged by its plausible impact on the inherent Constitutional spirit. The fear of partisanship led to complex and elaborate checks and means of Article 368 to restrain the potential arbitrary powers of the Parliament of India.

The unbiased framers of the Constituent Assembly did not intend it to be inflexible or rigid, as that would have become suffocating and disallowed progressive incorporations. But as the visionary Dr Ambedkar forewarned, “The future Parliament if it met as Constituent Assembly, its members will be acting as partisans seeking to carry amendments to the Constitution to facilitate the passing of party measures which they have failed to get through Parliament by reason of some Article of the Constitution which has acted as an obstacle in their way. Parliament will have an axe to grind while the Constituent Assembly has none.”

While it is correct that the Constitution has been “amended” 106 times, including as the current dispensation insisted, “80 times” by the leading opposition party when it ruled ~ the acid test of “intent” accompanying those amendments becomes relevant. These amendments included some like the 10th (Incorporation of Dadar and Nagar Haveli as a Union Territory), 11th (Election of Vice President by electoral college composed of both Houses of Parliament as opposed to Joint Sitting of Parliament), 21st (inclusion of Sindhi as a national language) etc., which really did not impact the tenor or spirit of the Constitution as envisaged by the founding fathers.

Even the inclusion of “secularism” to the preamble via the 42nd amendment did not diminish the majestic spirit of the Constitution ~ however what did shame the same was the imposition of Emergency. That had entailed a blatant controlling, illiberal, and intolerant intent. It is “changes” of that nature that ought to concern us all. The partisan lure of attempting to change the Constitution is old hat and all political parties can be credibly accused of harbouring malintent towards the same. When the current ruling persuasion had come in its first innings, murmurs of an attempt to change the Constitution had surfaced. India then had a fine constitutionalist as the incumbent President of India (also the conscience keeper of the Indian Constitution) in KR Narayanan.

In Narayanan’s time, the Rashtrapati spoke his mind independently, albeit as he insisted “within the four corners of the Constitution”. Narayanan had to officially support the review of the Constitution as scripted by the then dispensation, and he was dutybound to read the given text, but it pricked his conscience given the swearing-in oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”. He had to find a creative and ameliorative way of expressing concern, which he did. The wise man chose the 50th (Golden Jubilee) of the Republic’s foundation to publicly question, “Let us examine if the Constitution has failed us or we have failed the Constitution”.

It was a loaded expression of dissent aimed at his own government to introspect. India was doubly lucky to have an equally sagacious Prime Minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee who understood the depth, maturity, and significance of the Presidential concern. The matter of changing the constitution died its own death and it took two statesmen and patriots to overcome any sense of beholden or overtly partisan insistences. Today, neither the accused nor the accusers can honestly claim to have personified the Constitutional spirit or morality any better than the other. Only political circumstances have suddenly made the Constitution of India the reference lodestar to claim one-upmanship, and India can only be better off for the same. This urgency to defend the Constitution by the dispensation and the opposition is less than sincere, but welcome nonetheless, for what it will disallow.

(The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)