We, the people: Indians must go back to values enshrined in Constitution

On India’s 69th Republic Day, it is important to reflect on the extraordinary nature of the country’s achievement. A continent-sized country has, thanks to a liberal and inclusive Constitution, survived wars, droughts, inflation, and dissensions of various hues. It has seen off challenges to democracy and retained its faith in the wisdom of the electorate. Among other things, India is the largest growing large economy, millions have moved above the poverty line, and even the socially depressed have been able to achieve upward mobility. The country has made great strides in life expectancy, infant mortality, and literacy over the decades, and there are remarkable achievements in technology, on the ground and in space; there is a fresh data revolution in telecom, and so on. Economic activity has shifted to Asia, and India is a large and growing part of that story as its economy has given it greater global heft.

Yet, on this particular January 26, as mobs force the closure of cinemas across the country and stone school buses, the incomplete nature of the Indian project is also clearly visible. Democratic institutions have not been able by themselves to control the growing trend of polarisation in India, both socially and politically. Liberal values require open debate, open discussion, and open dissent. But there no longer appears to be a firm ground on which such deliberation can occur. Identity, not ideas, are dominant in politics, and cults of the individual have replaced a commitment to institutions. Technological and social changes have caused citizens to be increasingly trapped within echo chambers that intensify their prejudices and hamper the open exchange of views that is the foundation of a free society. People are thus prone to taking stark, maximalist positions.  

This year began with Dalits in Maharashtra commemorating, as they have for decades, the defeat of the Peshwas by the British in a battle that featured the heroics of the Mahar Regiment. In any liberal society, such commemoration is the right of any individual or group. But matters turned ugly, some Dalit protestors were attacked, and India’s financial capital was soon paralysed following ever-angrier protests in response to that attack. This cleavage, born as it is out of ancient divisions and hierarchies, may appear unique. But others have disrupted normal life in recent times. Sub-nationalism has become the dominant political issue in southern states such as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Locally dominant castes such as Jats and Gujjars in the north and Patidars in Gujarat have sought preferential treatment from the state, sometimes using threats and violence. And, of course, religious tension has been stoked by cow protection programmes and other such activism.

This is the main challenge that “We, the people” — in the words of the Constitution — have to face going forward. How can India manage these increasing divisions and the growing communitarian, rather than the liberal, approach to politics and social organisation? Too many communities feel the stakes in terms of respect or economic empowerment are so high right now that they have no alternative but to mobilise around illiberal demands. The growing power of social media means that echo chambers are more widespread and that there is a great incentive for leaders to take the sort of extreme positions that play well to an online audience of partisans. Indians need to go back to the values and principles enshrined in the Constitution.