It's a triumph that descendants of those who rejected Constitution are today defending it: Tharoor

New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday said it is a triumph that the descendants of those who rejected the Constitution are today celebrating and defending it.

Speaking at the launch of his book Our Living Constitution, Tharoor said that society and the Constitution have both been evolving and in that process we are gradually seeing “the infusion of constitutional values and constitutional morality” into the social fabric of India.

“Today the elements of the Hindutva movement are amongst the staunchest advocates of the Constitution, the defenders of it. The prime minister says it is the only holy book. And you are looking at a situation in which even the head of the RSS Mohan Bhagwat has pledged support and allegiance to the Constitution as it stands and has talked about safeguarding it,” Tharoor said.

He added that the forebears of the RSS had rejected the Constitution's “root and branch” stating that “it was written in a wrong language and infused with western ideas”.

“...now their intellectual ideological descendants today are the ones swearing by the Constitution and defending it. They have also evolved, society is also evolving. Judgements have changed, our interpretations have changed with 106 amendments and that’s actually the strength of the Constitution,” Tharoor said.

“And I would argue that in this process you are gradually seeing the infusion of constitutional values and constitutional morality into the social fabric of India,” he added.

Even though a lot of things have gone “wrong” and many things could go “worse”, the Thiruvananthapuram MP argued one of the things that is going right is the “extent to which the values, morals and aspirations of the Constitution have sunk themselves into the consciousness of ordinary Indians”.

“This way in which India as a country has in a sense found it possible to celebrate under the rule of a party, whose forebears were against the Constitution, the 75th anniversary of the same Constitution, I think this is a tremendous triumph,” he said.

Tharoor in his book describes various parts of the Constitution, beginning with its preamble and then goes on to explain its historical roots.

The book explores the civic nationalism that animated India’s founding fathers which in turn invested the Constitution with its progressiveness, pluralism, tolerance, liberalism and concern for the individual.

The launch event was attended by former Congress leader and lawyer Kapil Sibal, Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra, former Supreme Court judge Madan Lokur and columnist Shubhrastha.

Responding to a question on restructuring of the Constitution, Sibal said there is a structural defect, but not with the Constitution.

“...but in the way we work it. We don’t need a restructuring of the Constitution, we need a restructuring of our politics, of the way our politicians think, the way our judges act, the way the media fails itself every day. That’s the change we need,” he said.

Quoting Ambedkar on the Constitution, the former Rajya Sabha MP said there is a culture of domination that is prevalent in India, which is “the real problem”.

“Ambedkar had said in an interview to BBC, ‘democracy will not work for the simple reason we have got a social structure which is totally incompatible with parliamentary democracy’. That’s the real problem in our country. You have a caste system, you have a culture of domination that’s prevalent in our country, you have a mindset of the politician who is not answerable to anybody,” he added.