Yogendra Yadav writes: What’s Indian about the Indian Constitution?

Let us also admit that modernist-universalist hubris is no answer to this question. “Why does modern India’s Constitution need to be Indian?” is a bad retort to the question. Every constitution must pass the test of cultural authenticity in its own context. The modernist response is also counter-productive, as it strengthens the suspicion of cultural inauthenticity that gives credence to this question in the first place. The break from the past that the modern constitution makers were so keen to underline can be easily made to look like a break from Indianness, detached from the cultural mores of our civilisation. (J Sai Deepak has argued this case, IE, November 29, Constitution is not at ease with civilisation).

Let us begin by setting aside what Indianness must not mean. On the one hand, an Indian Constitution cannot obviously mean a pristine document from India’s past, untouched by anything “foreign”, oblivious to the context of a modern state that requires a written constitution. In that sense, an Indian Constitution would be an oxymoron. On the other hand, a thin Indian veneer to any document does not make it Indian. Illustrations from Indian mythology on the original copy of the Constitution does not make it Indian; renaming Indian Penal Code as Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita does not make it Indian.

Similarly, there is nothing self-evidently Indian about privileging one element from our pre-modern history and demanding its pre-eminence in the contemporary constitutional arrangements. One can debate the merits of this model followed by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (in their case, at least it was in line with the founding idea of Pakistan), but it is not clear why this selective appropriation lends greater authenticity to a constitution. Basically, it is a demand for instituting Hindu-ness (as “Sanatana” or in any other garb) at the heart of a modern constitutional arrangement for India. Without getting distracted into its disastrous social consequences, here we just need to note how imitative this suggestion is. If anything, this version of Indianness is mimicry; it is either a demand for Hindu Pakistan or a replica of Germany of the 1930s, or perhaps Israel of today. This is a travesty of Indianness.

A serious search for Indianness in the Constitution can take two forms, one more radical than the other. In its more ambitious avtar, authenticity can require a de novo originality. A very Indian version of the Constitution would have meant setting aside the entire received gamut of western political thought and carving each element of the institutional design afresh, drawing upon our civilizational heritage. This is what Gandhi wanted in Hind Swaraj. This is why Gandhians like Shriman Narayan felt that the Constitution did not do justice to the genius of India. It must also be noted that hardly any constitution of the last century (with the exception of Iran and Bolivia) would pass this test of authenticity. While searching for this alternative is a valid aspiration, no one has anything like a workable draft of such a constitution. Indianness in this sense must remain a work in progress.

The more feasible version, the only version known across the world recently, is compositional originality, newness as rearrangement. Here Indianness of the constitution would be tested by a different set of yardsticks: How were the many elements received from the western constitutional tradition rearranged and modified to suit the Indian context? Does this new arrangement reflect India’s civilisational journey? Is the philosophy underlying the Constitution in line with our intellectual traditions? And has the working of this Constitution validated these assumptions?

Once we ask these appropriate and relevant questions, we can see what is Indian about the Indian Constitution. The Constitution of India may have been written in less than three years, but it was thought through for well over a century. In its essence, the Constitution is a distillation of “modern Indian political thought”. Since this body of knowledge was not limited to any one ism or orientation, the Constitution reflects an equilibrium of contesting visions of India. It is informed by a deep engagement with the multiple strands of our intellectual traditions. Faced with a colonial modernity, our Constitution is informed by a conscious effort to forge a very Indian modernity. And the lived experience of jurisprudence and litigation in the last 75 years has shown that the people of India — even those who have never heard of the constitution — partake of this very Indian constitutional morality.

The Indianness of the Indian Constitution is not in-your-face. Seemingly familiar strands have been woven to produce something unique. The design of the “Union of India”, instead of a classic federal state, is in line with the multi-layered character of the pre-modern state in India. The crafting of a “state- nation” rather than a European style “nation-state” reflected an old tradition of respect for deep cultural and social diversity. The secular features of the Constitution are not a replica of American or French style secularism; the Indian “principled distance” version of secularism is drawn from the tradition of maitri and is closer to the idea of sarva dharma samabhava. The “socialist” features of the Indian Constitution are a continuity of the principle of karuna or active compassion. And yes, the rejection of the caste system and untouchability also builds upon long traditions of social and religious reform. In India, parampara is not about conserving the past, it is about reinvigorating our present by reinterpreting the received wisdom, recasting the best and discarding the deadwood. This is what our Constitution does.

The Indianness of the Constitution is like that of the bread pakora that transforms an alien white bread into an authentic Indian dish. Or that of Indian cinema that has used a received technology to craft an art form that echos the spirit of India. Like bread pakora or cinema, the Constitution of India is a testament to our desi genius — very modern and distinctly Indian.

The writer is member, Swaraj India, and national convenor of Bharat Jodo Abhiyaan. Views are personal