Express View on Republic Day
For the world’s largest democracy, the celebrations and commemorations of 75 years of being a republic are a reminder of what lies alongside, and that which endures. While elections are a democracy’s way of renewing itself every five years, Republic Day is a reminder of the constitutional pact that mirrors and forms the constant common ground. It is the space that is not defined by the winners, nor can it be overturned by them. It is the shared commitment to the values and rules of the game that hold out the possibility of today’s losers becoming tomorrow’s winners. Despite the unabashed conceits of those who win the election and seek to conquer all — look at how the newly elected leader of the world’s most powerful democracy issues order after order in the manner of a Pakistan General’s attempts to erase and remake everything in his image — in spite of the sometimes overwhelming pessimism of those who lose, and notwithstanding the cynicism of voters who think all is lost, January 26 comes every year as a countervailing idea and a restorative message.
Republic Day also brings a moment to celebrate the acts of ordinary individuals, not just the winners or losers of power, who constitute the republic and reclaim it in so many ways, not just by voting. In this paper, a series begun on January 26 revisits some of the landmark cases that have helped to reshape the republic, and expand its spaces. These cases are a testimony to the power of the individual, and also to the independent institution, the Court, that can make it writ large, ensure that it is seen and heard. The first report in the series recalls the 1950 Romesh Thapar vs State of Madras ruling that came after an editor of a magazine that had been banned by the government challenged the decision and sought a remedy from the highest court. If the SC ruling, then, drew on the newly adopted Constitution that guaranteed individual freedoms, it continues to guardrail free speech, including press freedom, even now. The underlying reasoning still resonates — that laws curbing freedoms must be narrowly tailored and that such laws will be scrutinised by a vigilant court to protect the individual against Executive arbitrariness and excess. It’s this spirit that’s also violated when 10 Opposition MPs are summarily suspended, as they were on Friday, for allegedly disrupting a Parliamentary panel meeting on changes in the Waqf law.
That’s why January 26 is a reminder of the need for a different vocabulary and language. Not one that sees every election as a do-or-die, all-or-nothing fight-to-the-finish, but which frames it as one among many contestations and transitions in a large and diverse country. This is a republic of incomplete victories and defeats, no full stops or clean slates, and it offers many meeting points for parties and forces that are otherwise facing off across a dividing line. On January 26, and on the days after, the nation must collectively acknowledge a binding republicanism, and renew its pledge to retrieve its lost meanings.