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Everything you wanted to ask about the move to review the Constitution, but didn't know whom to ask Krishna Prasad
Yeh review, review kya hai?
In the golden jubilee year of the Republic, the BJP-led
National Democratic Alliance government wants to set
up a commission to "review" the Constitution, to
"strengthen" it and make it an "effective instrument for
faster and equitable socio-economic development" as promised
by it in its election manifesto.
35-word, two-line promise?
Yes. All the NDA speaks of in its manifesto, is its plan to
"appoint a commission to review the Constitution not only in
the light of experiences and developments since 1996, but,
indeed, of the entire post-Independence period, and to make
suitable recommendations."
The entire Constitution or just portions of it?
No one is quite sure, although L K Advani has been kind
enough to clarify that "the intention is not to create a new
Constitution. We do not want to create a new Constitution.
I have always been opposed to a new Constitutent Assembly."
The review, says the home minister, is like a "periodic
health check-up".
Why then is everybody so sceptical?
Because no one has yet explained "how a remulching of the
constitutional arrangement will yield a better crop of
governance." And because, as the noted economist K N Raj
says, the "review" could mean anything from an amendment to
a change in the basic structure of the Constitution. But law
minister Ram Jethmalani says: "Even if you find one part
wrong, you have to look at it as a whole."
What is the stand of different political parties on the
review?
The BJP says it is an "innocent act" whose time has come.
Mayawati alleges the BJP move is a "clear challenge" to the
wisdom of the Father of the Constitution, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.
The Congress and Left parties believe the review is just a
figleaf for the "saffronisation" of the nation's polity.
Meaning?
The veteran political journalist K K Katyal writes in The
Hindu that the RSS is stated to be the main motivating
force for this course of action: "There is a feeling that
the constitutional changes were favoured for removing
obstacles to implementing the hidden agenda".
The "hidden agenda" roughly translates into building the Ram
temple in Ayodhya, evolving a uniform civil code,
abolishing Article 30 which gives a right to minorities to
establish and administer educational institution and
abolishing Article 370 which grants special status to Jammu
& Kashmir.
Dr Subramaniam Swamy alleges that the RSS had directed the
BJP to find ways to start a new Republic with a "Hindutva
Constituton".
Is it that easy?
No. The government will require the two-thirds support of
Parliament for any tinkering of the essential features and
principles of the Constitution. And given Sonia Gandhi's
mood at the moment (she courted arrest over the removal of
the Gujarat government ban on bureaucrats joining the RSS),
that is next to impossible to obtain.
Then why is the Congress so vehement in its opposition?
Chiefly, because the Congress wants to be seen as the
secular torch-bearer and because it feels a statutory
provision for fixed-tenures for the Lok Sabha and state
assemblies is a covert exercise by the BJP and its friends
to abrogate power without accountability.
But BJP general
secretary M Venkaiah Naidu says the reason Congress is
afraid is because a public debate on the review would expose
the party's long saga of misrule and misdeeds. And Prafull
Goradia, also of the BJP, writes that the Congress is afraid
that a "review might lead to provision whereby a person of
foreign birth is barred from holding any high office."
Just that?
Not quite. Congressmen say the real catch in the exercise is
Centre-state relations in which the Centre would be the sole
arbiter in inter-state disputes. The proposed changes would
leave no choice for states to knock the doors of the
judiciary. The Congress is also peeved with Ram Jethmalani's
statement that the word "socialism" be deleted from the
Constitution, and the attempt to tamper with the size of
some state assemblies which would be to the BJP's advantage
and the Congress' disadvantage.
Where does the President stand on all this?
The President has put a spoke in the government's wheel. He
disapproves of the idea of freeing the executive from the
rigours of accountability by going in for a presidential
form of government and by having fixed terms for the Lok
Sabha and state assemblies.
At a function to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the
Constitution, barely minutes after Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee had mentioned the government's intentions to
review the statute, K R Narayanan said the time was
opportune to ask if we had failed the Constitution or the
Constitution had failed us.
He quoted Rajendra Prasad, the first president, who said in
1949: "If the people who are elected are capable and are men
of character and integrity, they should be able to make the
best of even a defective Constitution. If they are lacking
in these, the Constitution cannot help the country."
Has the Constitution failed us?
N J Nanporia writes in Deccan Herald: In the light of the
evidence on every side no one can dare to maintain that the
Constitution has succeeded…. Consider the main features of
the political landscape today. Ugly scenes in Parliament and
state legislatures. Blatant horse-trading and corruption. An
increasingly poisonous infection of the politician-bureaucrat nexus. A rising level of instability,
both of the political and law-and-order kind. The
manipulation of voters on the basis of caste and other such
affiliations. Poll rigging on large scale. Populism at the
expense of progress."
And Harish Khare writes in The Hindu: "It can be conceded
that the Constitution-based political system has not
produced the kind of satisfactory governance that would have
transformed India from a feudal economy and fragmented
polity into a first-rate industrial economy and modern
governing arrangement."
Should President Narayanan's stand surprise us considering
that he is a former Congressman?
Yes. Twice before, he had included in his address to
Parliament mentions of the BJP-led government's desire to
eradicate the "virus" of political instability caused by
minority governments.
On October 25, 1999, he said the NDA government wanted to
have a fixed five-year term for the Lok Sabha and the state
assemblies. And to replace the present system of
no-confidence with a "constructive vote of no-confidence".
More than a year before, on March 25, 1998, he said: "Fifty
years after independence, the time has come to rejuvenate
our institutions so that they are strong enough to meet the
challenges of the future. The government proposes to do so
as well as appoint a commission to review the Constitution
and make recommendations so that anomalous experiences of
the past are not repeated in the future."
Why has he changed his mind now?
That's what you would think. Jethmalani does not. The law
minister says "my reading of the President's speech is that
he has approved of the process of keeping the Constitution
under review and making changes where necessary."
Given the opposition to a whole-sale review and the
President's misgivings, wouldn't amendments have been
sufficient?
Probably. Former chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana
high court Justice M Rama Jois, for one, believes that
amendments to Article 73 and 113 to bring it line with
Article 63 and 66 of the German Constitution would have
sufficed to deal with the BJP's core concerns.
According to Article 63, immediately after elections,
Parliament should choose its leader without debate, who
should secure 51 per cent of the votes. The President is
compelled to put the person so elected in the PMO.
And
Article 66 says a no-confidence vote should be accompanied
by suggestions for an alternative person to take over as
prime minister. If adopted here, the Lok Sabha may express
its lack of confidence in the incumbent prime minister by
electing successor with the majority of its members.
That simple?
Yes. As K K Katyal writes, a change to this effect does not
necessitate a "review" of the Constitution or its amendment,
not even a simple legislative measure. "It could be brought
about by revising the rules of procedure of the LS as was
done when the concept of 'confidence motion' was
introduced."
Wasn't that acceptable to the BJP?
Could have been but wasn't. Which just goes to show that the
Vajpayee government probably has in mind "major, substantive
changes" which could not be effected through the amendment
process. And which is why Venkaiah Naidu is vehemently
opposed to specific amendments to deal with the
problem-areas. He says there could be no amendment without a
review.
Is the Constitution so sacred that it cannot be touched?
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