The Constitution of India was made by the good for the honest. It is worked by the wise for the experienced. This marks a maturing of our Republic. It also tells us that the timber of our parliamentary functioning is being seasoned in varied waters.
Over six decades and 94 amendments after the people of India gave unto themselves that great enactment, it is not surprising that some feel: "Should we not take a re-look at the Constitution? It is quite old."
Age is no weakness when the health is sound. Our Constitution has stood the test of time and has given us institutions and arrangements which have suited our genius quite admirably and have reflected our instincts.
I recall President K R Narayanan saying from the floor of the Central Hall of Parliament, at a time when a review of the Constitution had been announced: "Our Constitution has not failed us; we have failed the Constitution." It would be good for us to see how we can measure up to the ideals of the Constitution: Elections are our pride; they can also be a privation. They bring out the best in us; they reveal the worst. They excite us; they exhaust us. They can, like a good monsoon, bring hope. They can, as in a failed monsoon, bring gloom.
This is not about who wins and who loses. It is about what wins and how; and what loses and why. Elections generate faith; in some cases, they are known to have generated fear. Faith, in their power to reaffirm trust, or to re-position it. Fear, over their knack to uncork violence, unleash vendetta.
In an election, it is the candidate's message of the manifesto that is supposed to win the vote. And so it does. But, smiling in its sleeve, so does money. This, of course, is a universal fact and not an Indian phenomenon.
One cannot fight an election on good wishes. Expenses have to be incurred; they always have. But the flow of currency in elections has grown from a small stream into a river in spate.
Some election victories have been the progeny of intimidation — as undisguised as they are ugly. Murders in an election are an abomination. And yet they have become a reality.
The great majority of our legislators win clean. They win because they have persuaded their voters to vote for them, helped perhaps by a certain mood in the air, a hava. But some — not a microscopic number — win under different auspices.
Certain victories can be more embarrassing than defeats, certain defeats more honourable than victories. Most candidates in India's elections — all honour to them — have kept their heads above the din. But some have authored dictionaries of slang, the etymologies of which are best left unexplored.
At times such as the present when global meltdown, global terror and global warming are distorting life as we know it, our public life cannot afford the luxury of acrimony, much less of violence, in the political arena.
We can see that our glaciers have shrunk dramatically, rivers across the country flow thin and our reservoirs hold half or even less than what they should. Supply lines for power and water are, therefore, panting to meet demands; electricity and water supply agencies draw irate crowds. In a situation such as this, the calling of crippling bandhs and gheraos must cease.
To lodge a protest against a decision or a move is the right of every citizen or a group of people. It only shows that our society is 'alive' and not 'mechanical'. But the immobilising of an entire area or a state or citizen services by bandhs or blockades is unwisdom — of the lowest and most dangerous kind.
It is time we, as a people, made an ecologically responsible citizenship and a politically responsible democracy a goal that cannot be compromised. That has to be the bedrock of our parliamentary democracy, of our nationhood. Without it, parliamentary democracy and the process of elections will lose meaning. It is time for sagacious leaders of public opinion, and for our legislators in particular, to work in the short-term, but for the long-term.
(Excerpts from a speech by West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, at the inauguration of a national seminar on 'Indian Parliamentary Democracy' at Gorky Sadan in Kolkata on July 25)
