Between the song and the cover art of Constitution

‘I could sing the blues any way I choose,
if I wanted /

I could turn you around, I could bring
you down, if I wanted /

But it’s not my constitution, it’s not
my way of life’

Badfinger, the most underrated rock band of the 1960s and 70s, began performing ‘Constitution’ in 1972, though it was not released until the following year, on the much-delayed and ill-fated studio album ‘Ass’. The cover artwork for ‘Ass’ featured a donkey hopelessly pursuing a giant carrot teasingly held out in the distant sky. The mood was Don Quixote, the style René Magritte.

Notice the ambiguity between the song ‘Constitution’ and its cover art. The song declares what ‘my constitution’ in fact is, how it regulates my choices, my behaviour, keeps me oriented toward prosocial acts, and defines my way of life. The cover art, on the contrary, suggests that the Constitution makes asses of us all – fruitlessly chasing distant illusions, foolish troubadours in a surreal landscape.

Also Read: Fraternity important at this time; should be given some teeth: Ex-SC judge Nariman

Which is it -- is our Constitution actually our living reality, or just an enticing pie in the sky? As I’ve been rediscovering Badfinger this November, that’s the question I’ve been pondering.

As everyone knows, the Constitution came into force on January 26, 1950. That meant the abrogation of the Government of India Act, 1935 (which had been the governing document for the country even after Independence in 1947), effecting a significant change in status for India. From an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations, India finally became, as the Preamble of the new Constitution declared, a sovereign democratic republic.

But January 26 was not the date that readers of the Preamble would encounter: ‘WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA…IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this 26th day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION’.

Why this two-month lag between the mentioned date of adoption -- November 26, 1949, now feebly celebrated as ‘Constitution Day’ -- and the date that we robustly celebrate as Republic Day? The reason dates back to two decades prior to the completion of the Constitution. In 1929, during the Indian National Congress’ Lahore session, a call was made for complete independence, Purna Swaraj, in defiance of the British government’s offer of dominion status. In his closing statement as chair of the Lahore session, Jawaharlal Nehru declared, “Complete independence is our motto.”

A year later, Gandhi published an article on January 26, 1930, that read, “Today is the day to proclaim that we will not be satisfied with dominion status; we want Purna Swaraj, or complete independence.” This bold and defiant move began to be recognised, and routinely celebrated, on January 26 as Purna Swaraj Diwas.

It was thus as a callback to this momentous demand that the Constituent Assembly determined that the new Constitution would come into complete effect on January 26, 1950, rather than on November 26, 1949.

Also Read: Time to codify Governors’ powers

There was a cartoon in Shankar’s Weekly back in August 1949 depicting Babasaheb Ambedkar riding a snail, with Prime Minister Nehru behind him, whipping him on to try to get him to move faster. The infamous cartoon represented public impatience with the long-drawn-out process of drafting the Constitution. And yet, the temporised enactment of the Constitution, delaying it even further until Purna Swaraj Diwas, indicated the comfort of Prime Minister Nehru — despite the cartoon portraying him as the whipper hastening the completion of the Constitution — in sacrificing urgency for ideological impact.

Constitutions, as this little backstory seems to hint at, are as ideological and symbolic as they are actual, basic law, governing each of us and our land. The gap between the two, which Badfinger’s album cover art depicted, had already been dramatically highlighted by Ambedkar himself just a day before the Constitution’s completion. On November 25, 1949, he said: “We must make our political democracy a social democracy…What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity…On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality, and in social and economic life we will have inequality…”

The contradiction that Ambedkar pointed to was that between the Constitution as written versus the Indian social ecosystem, where inequality flourished and Indians remained at liberty to allow their vileness, rather than their virtues, to flourish. Maybe that’s the meaning of Constitution Day: to remind us of this gap between the ideals of the written text and the Republic that we actually live in.

‘But it’s not my constitution, it’s not
my way of life /

You know, I’m just a lover for my life.’