On Republic named India

To start with, I would like to congratulate all of you (especially Indians and may be NRI’s as well) on the 63^rd Republic Day. It was on this day that the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of India. And for those who are simply not aware, Republic means “a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people”.

Indian Constitution is the lengthiest constitution which derives various features from other constitutions. As far as what I have learnt till now is that Indian Constitution is a beauty and has very well catered to the needs of the masses. We have been a shining example of democracy which functions with unimaginable diversities. There have been disturbances, internal as well as external, there have been problems, economical, social, and cultural and many more and we have survived all of those.

What seems more disturbing is that we don’t value this inherited constitution and its features. One of the most prominent features of our constitution is Fundamental Rights which has its origin in the Bill of Rights. Most recently an encounter of a fundamental right being in news was that of ”Right to Freedom”. Freedom of speech and expression can never be taken literally. There has to be a cap over it.

Is it really difficult to express yourself in a way that it doesn’t hurt someone else? Why do we have to express ourselves only in context of a controversial issue? We need to respect each other’s religion, culture and moral underpinnings. Freedom of speech comes with a sense of responsibility as well where you have to make sure it causes no harm. Only because contempt of court is a legitimate concept, you respect the courts and just because there is no provision of penalizing for defamation, you can spill trash about anything?

M.F. Hussain and Salman Rushdie are not the only protagonists here. There is probably a species of people who like to make controversial statements. Be it Mayawati or Poonam Pandey or Baba ramdev or Bal Thackrey or Rahul Gandhi. They all seem to be blinded by enmassed publicity. The anti graft crusader Anna Hazare has also delivered totally senseless remarks and then stated that they have been blowed out of proportion. Being an artist or a politician or a celebrity doesn’t give us a license to talk insensitively. 

We should make the most out of the things we have and try best to bring out positive out of it. When we have fundamental rights, we should use them make our lives beautiful and dignified rather than targeting a group of people, intentionally or otherwise too.