Skip to main content

The Indian Spirit


The real question is not whether the original Preamble to the Indian Constitution contained the words ‘secularist’ and ‘socialist’ but what the present India really wants to be.  It is not a matter of words as much as about intentions and motives.

A flashback from history

Delhi, June 1947

Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of the British Raj, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and a few others are giving the final touches to the governments of independent India and Pakistan. 

“You be the first Governor-General of independent India,” says Nehru to Mountbatten who is visibly dismayed.

It is a gesture of gratitude and appreciation from the magnanimous people of India to a person who has been working heart and soul for the past four months keeping in mind the welfare of both the countries that are being created.

Jinnah has already declared himself the Governor-General of Pakistan.

“According to the Constitution,” points out Mountbatten, “it is the Prime Minister who will have all the power; the Governor’s role is a symbolic one with no real power attached to it.”

Jinnah takes a deep puff on his pipe and declares as solemnly as a king, “I will be Governor-General and the Prime Minister will do what I tell him to do.”

Should I accept this new role?  Mountbatten asks himself.  His wife is totally against it; she has already communicated her intention to him: leave India to the Indians. 

Mountbatten says, “The Mahatma will take the decision.”

In spite of the numerous arguments and disagreements that they have had in the past four months, Mountbatten and Gandhi have grown to like each other.  Gandhi never hates anyone.  It is the British rule in India that he hated, and not the British people, Mountbatten knows that too well. 

Gandhi is happy to have Mountbatten as the first Governor-General of independent India.  It is symbolic of India’s tolerance and magnanimity.

Mountbatten is flattered by the tribute of the Mahatma.  “We’ve jailed him, we’ve humiliated him, we’ve scorned him, and he still has the greatness of spirit to do this.”  A miasma of moisture rises to Mountbatten’s eyes in spite of himself.

Flashback ends

Delhi, January 2015

The  President of America is the guest at the Republic Day celebrations.  He is aware of the intolerance that has gripped the Indian society.  So he is compelled to speak words such as: “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered on religious lines. Every person has the right to practice their religion how they choose,” and “Our nations are strongest when we see we are all God's children, all equal in his eyes.  Sometimes I have been discriminated against on the basis of the colour of my skin.”

India has a Prime Minister who may not agree.  His government erases or wishes to erase the concept of secularism from the Constitution.  The Prime Minister knows how to create magic with words.  And he has an invisible army of volunteers transmuting his magic into protean shapes of reality, into kaleidoscopic patterns that dazzle a nation’s fancy.

Jai Hind.


Labels:

Comments

  1. Anita SabatJanuary 29, 2015 at 11:47 AM

    Intentions & motives are important. Actions speak louder than words.
    But the 2 words have a lot of weight and cannot be ignored. That'll threaten our India.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 29, 2015 at 1:09 PM

      Especially since people always see through the leader's motives and intentions. Let the PM not do anything for the minority communities. He hates them and let him do that. But let him not allow strife to be sown in the country if he is incapable of appreciating cultural and religious diversity as the American President did.

      Delete
  2. Amrita SabatJanuary 29, 2015 at 5:34 PM

    Well said Sir.but secularism is d basic structure of d constitution so suppose d 'majority' removes it from preamble,it'll alwez remain at heart of d constitution n judiciary-d upholder of our Constitution.
    Similarly socialism.same PM who sez dat nation's wealth (tijori) is for d poorest n excluded sectns cannot disown d concept of socialist nation!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 29, 2015 at 6:51 PM

      There's no alternative but accept secularism especially in a globalised world and also because India is going out asking other countries, none of which is a Hindu Rashtra, to invest in India.

      Socialism may be an outdated concept for today's world which is run by ultra capitalism. But India should not neglect the millions of its population who are still living on the edge.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...
121 comments
Read more

Tanishq and the Patriots

Patriots are a queer lot. You don’t know what all things can make them pick up the gun. Only one thing is certain apparently: the gun for anything. When the neighbouring country behaves like a hoard of bandicoots digging into our national borders, we will naturally take up the gun. But nowadays we choose to redraw certain lines on the map and then proclaim that not an inch of land has been lost. On the other hand, when a jewellery company brings out an ad promoting harmony between the majority and the minority populations, our patriots take up the gun. And shoot down the ad. Those who promote communal harmony are traitors in India today. The sacred duty of the genuine Indian patriot is to hate certain communities, rape their women, plunder their land, deny them education and other fundamental rights and basic requirements. Tanishq withdrew the ad that sought to promote communal harmony. The patriot’s gun won. Aapka Bharat Mahan. In the novel Black Hole which I’m writing there is...
61 comments
Read more

Romance in Utopia

Book Review Title: My Haven Author: Ruchi Chandra Verma Pages: 161 T his little novel is a surfeit of sugar and honey. All the characters that matter are young employees of an IT firm in Bengaluru. One of them, Pihu, 23 years and all too sweet and soft, falls in love with her senior colleague, Aditya. The love is sweetly reciprocated too. The colleagues are all happy, furthermore. No jealousy, no rivalry, nothing that disturbs the utopian equilibrium that the author has created in the novel. What would love be like in a utopia? First of all, there would be no fear or insecurity. No fear of betrayal, jealousy, heartbreak… Emotional security is an essential part of any utopia. There would be complete trust between partners, without the need for games or power struggles. Every relationship would be built on deep understanding, where partners complement each other perfectly. Miscommunication and misunderstanding would be rare or non-existent, as people would have heightened emo...
9 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

The Circus called Politics

Illustration by ChatGPT I have/had many students whose parents are teachers in schools run or aided by the government. These teachers don’t send their own children to their own schools where education is free. They send their children to private schools like the one where I’ve been working. They pay huge fees to teach their children in schools where teachers are paid half of or less than their salaries. This is one of the many ironies about the Kerala society. An article in yesterday’s The Hindu [ A deeper meaning of declining school enrolment ] takes an insightful look at some of the glaring social issues in Kerala’s educational system. One such issue is the rapidly declining student enrolment in government and aided schools in the state. The private schools in the state, on the other hand, are getting more students. People don’t want to send their children to the schools run by the government systems. The chief reason is that the medium of instruction is Malayalam. The second ...
6 comments
Read more