Don’t Tear Up The Constitution

Being one who took the greatest interest and framing of the Constitution, Sri K. Santhanam cannot but strongly object to the continuance of the Emergency. He has pointed out in a recent statement that there is no logic or propriety in asking Chief Ministers to guide the Central Government as to what has to be done in this matter. Their desire to maintain the DIR shows they do not much care for Part Ill of the Constitution. Indeed they wish to be in power but without the trammels of democracy and fundamental rights.

 Any minister who wishes to function in our democracy out the inconvenience of Part III of the Constitution does believe in our Constitution, and the oath taken by him is falsehood. He is not qualified to serve as an executive.

 Reading the first reports that emanated from New Delhi one felt that a worse situation was to result out of the discussions over the withdrawal of the Emergency proclamation. Because the suggestions amounted to this; that the Emergency proclamation may be withdrawn but the DIR provisions will be the Constitution by such amendments of it as to deprive the citizen of his right to go to the courts to seek redress against the Executive. This would be worse than the present situation because it means the DIR would then become the permanent law of the land instead of being a temporary, emergency law.

 But perhaps the Law Ministry and the Attorney-General told the Government that such amendments would be open to declared null and void being contrary to the existing Constitution. The Government cannot get round the situation by devious devices. What the people want is not a ritual but the reality.

 The later news was that the Emergency proclamation would be retained because the DIR is wanted in the border areas but a constitutional amendment would be required to limit the Emergency to border areas. Why should this be a reason to give up that plan? Have we not had constitutional amendments without any difficulty?

 Even now they are moving for a constitutional amendment in order to get the Punjabi Suba through. It is obvious that the Government is deliberately keeping he Emergency going as a handy weapon to exercise DIR powers wherever it likes and in such measure as it pleases, doing something temporarily to allay the universal disgust about it.

 What the Prime Minister really wants, I guess, is that such stringent powers as the Chief Ministers desire to have, whether in the borders or elsewhere, should be obtained under ordinary laws, suitably drawn up, within the terms of the Constitution. I do not believe that the PM wants to play a trick on the people to withdraw the Emergency proclamation and to maintain the DIR all the same would be a trick. The principal condition under which such powers can be exercised within the ambit of the Constitution is that the affected individuals have the right to go to the judiciary to question the validity or the bona fides of such exercise of legal powers. This should remain as a check on misuse of authority. I think the Prime Minister aims at firm and wise governance, not an authoritarian government to replace what the Fathers of our Constitution put with religious devotion into the Articles of our charter.

 Those who are opposed to Statism should be firm in their resolve that the Constitution should be saved and restored to its full health and strength. They should carefully scrutinize every statement between now and the general elections, pointing out whatever is vague and whatever holds a double meaning. If the Prime Minister’s broadcast on the 24th April that the Government is “not wedded to any dogma and that our socialism is one that is related to India’s needs and aspirations and the reality of the Indian situation is anything more than radio platitude, it means that the Government’s policies in future will be different from what they were until now, and that they will be shaped by the realities of the grave situation which the nation is facing and not be tied down to past unreal ideological commitments. It ought to mean that henceforth the word ‘socialism’ means not any of the methods academically associated with that word, but is simply ‘concern for the welfare of the poor.’ It ought here-after to mean that the individual is not to be sacrificed at the altar of the State, in a word that we go back to the Constitution from which the Government policy has strayed far, so far away that Part III, the base that was intended permanently to support the Republic, was made unimportant and ignored in the governance of the country, and was amended as often and as substantially as Statist socialism stood in need of such amendment. This preference of “socialism” to the Constitution is a rebellion against the Constitution and should be quelled.

 [According to the latest news the battle to restore the Constitution was lost in the Lok Sabha: 122 congressmen voted to maintain the Emergency while 41 of the Opposition voted for withdrawing the Proclamation and restoring the Constitution. This is really a defeat for the Prime Minister at the hands of her own party. The 122 Congress votes were discipline-votes. The 41 votes demanding the withdrawal of the Proclamation of Emergency were free votes. The emergency is really in the Congress Party and not in the defence of the country The Congress leadership wants the DIR, not to face any enemy from abroad, but to tide over the party emergency —C.R.]