Rajnath Singh seeks blueprint on caste census, slams Congress for ‘insulting’ Constitution

Beginning his speech by paying tribute to the security personnel who laid down their lives to defend Parliament during a terror attack on December 13, 2001, Singh targeted the Congress, saying one political party has tried to claim the Constitution as its own despite it being a collective work.

“Some claim that one party gave the Constitution. The fact is that our Constitution is an expression of our civilisational values. It carries the legacy of our freedom struggle. It is a roadmap for national unity and integrity and for the dignity of citizens. There were also people who were not members of the Constituent Assembly but whose legacy is part of the Constitution.”

He also referred to the contribution of Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Bhagat Singh and Veer Savarkar — the mention of Savarkar led to interruptions from the Opposition benches.

Seeking to relate the Constitution to the BJP’s ideological family, Singh said, “Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee believed that the Constitution should be a result of collective ethos and consensus. In 1944, the Constitution of the Hindustan Free State contained the views of many leaders on how the Constitution should be. It said the state should have religious freedom. It also gave each citizen the right to protect his or her culture. The state was supposed to be secular. This was being said by those who were called communal by the Congress. Dr Mookerjee was very inspired by that document. He wanted a strong Centre and advocated a democratic Constitution. But all this is never mentioned.”

“One party tried to hijack and appropriate the Constitution. All these things have been concealed. Our Constitution is not the gift of a party but belongs to the people of India,” he said.

“Our Constitution enables a person from a poor family to become PM or President. This was ignored after Independence but our government is committed to it. We have broken colonial shackles and brought new penal laws,” he said.

Singh said the Modi government’s schemes — like pucca houses, free treatment and free ration to the poor, tap water and toilets in homes —  are concrete expressions of the constitutional ethos.

“Our government is working for women-led development and has passed the Naari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam. Our government gave constitutional status to the OBC Commission. We have also brought the EWS quota,” he said.

Referring to the abrogation of Article 370 to end the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, Singh said the Modi government also implemented the Constitution in a state where it was not applicable. He said people there voted in large numbers in the election that followed and it was violence-free.

He acknowledged the contributions of Dr B R Ambedkar, K M Munshi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee and others to the Constitution. “Today I also pay tribute to the founding mothers of our Constitution. Eleven women also signed the Constitution,” he said.

Attacking the Congress, which has been accusing the BJP of trying to change the Constitution, Singh referred to the Emergency in the country: “Today there are people who are talking about protecting the Constitution. But we need to remember who respected the Constitution and who insulted it. I will refer to the autobiography of former Supreme Court judge Justice H R Khanna, Neither Roses Nor Thorns. He wrote that he told his younger sister he had prepared a judgment that would cost him the Chief Justice post. This happened in 1976. In ADM Jabalpur vs. Shivkant Shukla case, he had given a dissenting judgment against the then Congress government. He was not willing to cede to the government anyone’s right to life and to move court. He had to pay a price for it. Today, the party that did it talks about the Constitution. They never liked the independence of institutions.”

“I see that some Opposition leaders are moving around with a copy of the Constitution in their pocket. They have learnt this from childhood. For generations, they have seen in their family the Constitution kept in pockets. But the BJP places the Constitution on its forehead.”

“The Congress, while in power, made some amendments to cripple the Constitution. They tried to make the Emergency non-justiciable in 1975. In 1976, the 43rd constitutional amendment tried to make the PM, President and Governor immune from any judicial action for anything done by them.” He also mentioned the 42nd constitutional amendment as one that tried to undo the Basic Structure of the Constitution.

“Was all this not a conspiracy to make the Constitution an instrument for the fulfilment of the agenda of an autocrat and make people subjects again?” Singh said, adding, “I also stayed in jail for 18 months. I was in solitary confinement for two months and  did not even get parole for the last rites of my mother.”

He said Indira Gandhi misused Article 356 fifty times to dismiss elected governments. “Congress chose power over the Constitution whenever there was a choice,” he said, recalling that the Kalyan Singh government was dismissed on December 6, 1992, after the demolition of the “disputed structure” (Babri Masjid) despite the fact that Kalyan Singh had already resigned as CM. He also recalled that a few years later, when Kalyan Singh was heading a coalition government, he proved his majority on the floor of the House, but the Governor dismissed him.

Targeting Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi for his critical comments abroad on the state of affairs in India, Singh said, “In 1995 in Geneva, when Pakistan was bringing a resolution on Kashmir, (Prime Minister PV) Narasmiha Rao sent (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee to present India’s stand. He praised Rao there, and when he returned to India, he again began to criticise the government. Today when I see that some leaders go abroad and criticise India, this event seems like a story. But every party should understand how a mature Opposition should behave.”

Singh faulted the Congress for not having implemented Article 44 of the Constitution, which talks about the Uniform Civil Code, for the sake of “appeasement politics”. “In the Shah Bano case, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of a divorced woman, but because of appeasement politics, the then Congress government reversed the judgment by law,” he said.