Gopalkrishna Gandhi: New partition being sown in our minds

Former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrisha Gandhi (File) 

On the eve of the Vice-Presidential election, the Opposition’s candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi said Thursday that the election is being held at a time when “a new partition is being sown in our minds” and “democratic freedoms of belief, thought and speech” are coming under “direct and indirect attacks”. In a brief note to the people, Gandhi wrote about the “integrated will” of the people of India which is enshrined in ideals like freedom, justice, equality and fraternity, the last being mutual trust and peaceful cohabitation among diverse communities, in the preamble of the Constitution.

“In this year, the 70th year of independent India, those great ideals have acquired a compelling urgency. They are facing challenges,” Gandhi wrote. He said that while Indians have freedom to choose representatives, he asked, “…in the larger arena of free choices, how free are we? Are we free of fear? Are we free to choose our way of life, our forms of thought and expression? Are we free to tell the bully and the bulldozer in high office or on the street corner off? Are we free and able to tell giant industries to not pollute our rivers, our air, to not dump their toxic waste in our environment?” he asked.

“Direct and indirect attacks are being made on democratic freedoms of belief, thought and speech. And institutions serving public causes feel a palpable pressure on them to conform where they wish to dissent, to be silent where they wish to speak up,” he added. While India has an independent and alert judiciary, justice in the social, economic and political sense envisaged in the Constitution is under strain, he said. “Vast numbers of our people continue to face direct or indirect discrimination and exploitation.”