The Congress on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “hypocrisy” for observing Constitution Day and alleged that the Constitution faces an existential crisis and India is no longer a collaborative federal nation.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said a constitution that has successfully stood the test of time for over seven decades, “today faces a fundamental crisis, indeed an existential crisis for the spirit behind its text”.
“We have reached a point where there is a growing disharmony, not just among people, but also between governments and states. Ours is no longer a collaborative federal nation,” he said in a statement.
The statement came hours after the prime minister addressed a function to mark the day.
The day is being observed as Constitution Day to commemorate the adoption of the Constitution of India by the constituent assembly in 1949.
Former party chief Rahul Gandhi asserted that he will walk on the road to unity till every word of it is upheld.
“I will walk that road long enough, until every word of our Constitution is upheld, and every citizen stands protected by fairness and justice,” he tweeted.
In a statement titled “The Looming Crisis of the Indian Constitution”, Kharge alleged that ever since the BJP government came to power in 2014, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has used it as a political vehicle to curtail freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.
“Illegal has become legal because the fringe has now become mainstream. The foremost tangible spirit of our democracy is being distorted and disrespected by people who are using it as a means to push a completely contrasting agenda,” Kharge said.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the draft constitution was adopted by the constituent assembly on 26.11.1949 and the constituent assembly decided that it would come into force from 26.01.1950 which is since celebrated as Republic Day.
“Ideological fountainheads of BJP had nothing whatsoever to do in making the Constitution,” he said in a series of tweets. “In fact the RSS was opposed to the Constitution of India. Desperately wanting to show that he respects the Constitution while he subverts it daily in letter and spirit, the prime minister decided to celebrate November 26 as Constitution Day. This is sheer hypocrisy,” Ramesh said.
Recalling B R Ambedkar’s speech of November 25, 1949 while piloting the final draft of the Constitution, he said, “I wish to remind the prime minister and his drum beaters of just two paras from that speech.” He shared portions of the speech.
Congress chief Kharge claimed that “this crisis finds its roots in the RSS’s ever-expanding reach within state institutions and the electoral (and by extension judicial) legitimacy of its ideology, with BJP in power”.
“The government has completely surrendered itself and its institutions to the diktats of the RSS, an organisation that pushes hateful propaganda under the garb of social service. In fact, it is no longer incorrect to use the terms RSS and the BJP interchangeably,” he noted.
“We are witnessing the onset of what Baba saheb (Bhimrao Ambedkar) would have referred to as ‘lawless law’, riddled with never-ending infringements on fundamental rights, systematically engineered by the BJP-RSS government since they have been in power,” he added.
The Congress chief alleged that “mysterious deaths of judges; their urgent transfers before they were to pronounce judgments; or their hounding when they have stood against the government has not gone unnoticed by people of India”.
“On top of it, the law minister lectures the executive and judiciary by saying ‘Aapas Mein Ladne Ka Koi Fayda Nahi Hai’ (there is no point in fighting),” he said.
Kharge said the Congress has embarked on the Bharat Jodo Yatra to unite the nation against forces of hatred and divisiveness.
“Let us unitedly take ownership of bringing India back to its constitutional values and restoring the nation to a time when these values thrived. The only way to control this new hegemonic disposition is to counter it with ideological and moral strength,” he noted.
He also alleged that within the system, the ruling party has restricted the opposition’s all avenues to express dissent.
“Routine muting of microphones in Parliament whenever the BJP’s (in)actions are questioned and spaces in media that are accessible to us are shrinking every day,” he said.
“The functioning and independence of the Election Commission of India has also been jeopardised. An opaque system of electoral bonds enforced as money bill has been brought to give undue advantage to the ruling party,” he added.
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