A republic of individuals

Individual, not community, rights are the basis of the Constitution

Republic Day, the anniversary of the adoption of India’s Constitution, is a fit moment to remember the values and importance of that document. When India became a constitutional republic in 1950, its founding generation took a great risk. They were convinced that a largely poor, and in many places socially backward, population would embrace the rights and duties laid out in what was for then – and for now – a remarkably progressive document. India has largely remained true to democratic values since. This is a great achievement. But it is true, too, that aspects of the order imagined in the Constitution have been obtained only partially. Along the years India has, as a nation, not always upheld the individual rights sanctified in its founding document.

The Constitution begins with the words “We, the People”. It is a document that speaks to individuals gathered together to form a liberal democracy, and it outlines the rights and responsibilities of those individuals. Too often, however, those individual rights have been sacrificed at the altar of not just expediency but group rights. The right to freedom of expression and freedom of belief has been, for example, frequently subjugated to the expressed demands of various communities. To have the freedom to speak implies that you also have the freedom to give offence. Speech that is offensive is also protected by the liberal values of the Constitution. However, the laws of the land, and how they are implemented by the guardians of law and order, do not always live up to that requirement. When questions of speech that is construed as offensive by one group or another are discussed, frequently individual rights are not even taken into account, or else they are not given adequate weight. This is unfortunate. After all, the most fundamental change that the Constitution brought about was the declaration that all Indians had certain inalienable rights, free speech among them, and that the state was the guarantor of those rights. Laws that limit such rights should not be allowed to stand; that is the point of Article 13 of the Constitution. Nor should the courts stand by if the legislatures make such laws; that is the point of Article 32. Each individual has the right to redress if such rights are infringed.

If India is to mature as a democracy, then individual rights rather than social demands have to be foregrounded. It is true that India is a delicate patchwork of social groups with multiple interests and points of view. Perhaps viewing it as a consociational democracy – a coalition of such groups that involves give and take – makes the job easier for those who have to govern it. But that is not what the Republic of India is supposed to be. It is supposed to be a place where free individuals are permitted to find their own ways to live, prosper, and grow. And that requires their rights as individuals to be prominent, not the convenience of the state or the demands of communities. On Republic Day, it is worthwhile to remember what it is that is being remembered: a Constitution that grants individual rights paramountcy. Only if India is moving closer to that goal is Republic Day a matter of unalloyed celebration.