At one point, India was deemed unfit for democracy: RS Prasad

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On the occasion of Constitution Day on Monday, Union Minister of Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad said that at one point, India was not deemed to be fit for being a democracy, yet the trust of citizens stands vindictive today.

"There were people who said that India is not fit for democracy, maybe they had a point as there was a partition, millions were killed and displaced. Yet the trust in the people of India stands vindictive today after 70 years. The people of India know today who they are and what they owe to themselves," Prasad said while addressing the gathering at Vigyan Bhavan.

Lauding the makers of the Constitution, Prasad noted that every bit of it was possible due to the statesmanship of India's leaders, who deliberately and consciously kept the people of India at the centre of their narrative. "Our leaders came with a constitutional ecosystem with a trusted ability of ordinary Indians to determine the destiny of India," he added.

Highlighting the strength of the Indian Constitution, the Electronics and Information Technology Minister said the people of the country need to trust India's democracy as with this confidence; India can unseat any political leader or political party "howsoever popular, howsoever powerful".

According to Prasad, the aspects that contributed to the growth of the Indian democracy were "the political process, the element of governance, the statecraft, the civil society, and the media."

"One thing that is remarkable about Indian traditions is that any issue that gets raised in any part of the world, arose in India too, be it race, religion, caste, community, language or region. But when we have the Supreme Court, which plays any extra-ordinary role in resolving such issues, the Supreme Court needs to be appreciated. People have to know that they have to govern for a purpose, either perform or perish," he noted.

Prasad also stressed that the nuances of constitutional morality need to be outlined with greater morality. "Constitutional morality should not defer from judge to judge, but there must be consensus and it is important because the government's action is found to be in infraction of Indian Constitutional morality. There must be judicially manageable standards whereby the determination can be amended."

"This march of 70 years is a march of great aspirations and great hopes, wherein, the values of the constitution had gained great self-confidence in the ordinary people of India that through this process, we have to make our country great," Prasad concluded.