JOIN USProtesters are reading the Preamble. It’s the soul of the Constitution
Let me start this week’s column with a book recommendation — Ambedkar’s Preamble, written by political philosopher Aakash Singh Rathore. The core thesis of his book is the argument that the Preamble to the Constitution, that we have come to cherish so much, is the result of Dr BR Ambedkar’s efforts. He picks out six key words in the Preamble, “justice”, “liberty”, “equality”, “fraternity”, “dignity” and “nation” to identify how these words bear the unmistakeable imprint of Ambedkar’s thinking and experiences.
The book challenges the popular notion (or as Rathore calls it, “the UPSC view”) that the Preamble was Jawaharlal Nehru’s. As important as the Objectives Resolution moved by Nehru was for the eventual shape of the Constitution, Nehru was not responsible for actually preparing the Preamble as we know it. Rather, Rathore, in the course of a fascinating forensic exercise in his book, credits Ambedkar with being the author of the Preamble.
Rathore’s point is also that those 81 words of the Preamble (now 85) were not just the expression of lofty rhetoric or careful drafting. They were the result of Ambedkar’s lived experiences, learning and political goals. Rathore’s book shows skilfully that while Ambedkar is rightly credited as the architect of the Constitution, he should also be rightly credited as the author of its Preamble. The most fascinating chapter of the book is definitely the one which relates to “fraternity” – a principle in our Constitution that Rathore claims owes less to the French Revolution and more to the Buddhist concept of metta.
The importance of the Preamble to the Constitution cannot be ignored or denied in the present. Although it was only in 1973 that the Supreme Court acknowledged the Preamble to be an integral part of the Constitution and that it should be used to interpret the Constitution, its principles and promises that have animated social and political movements right from the start.
But that is not the only reason I want to talk about the Preamble.
The Preamble also provides the Constitution with a basic structure -- a core set of principles and ideas which cannot be amended out of existence by Parliament or any government. The origins of the idea of a basic structure lie in the writings of German scholar Carl Schmitt and his student Dietrich Conrad, eventually finding expression in the Supreme Court’s judgement in Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala (1973). But this idea was not expressed in Kesavananda Bharati alone.
Consider this November 1978 speech of Thakur Das Bhargava, who was a member of the Constituent Assembly:
“I think, sir, that the soul of this Constitution is contained in the Preamble and I am glad to express my sense of gratitude to Dr Ambedkar for having added the word ‘fraternity’ to the Preamble. Now, sir, I want to apply the touchstone of this Preamble to the entire Constitution. If Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity are to be found in this Constitution, if we can get this ideal through this Constitution, I maintain that the Constitution is good. In so far as these four things which are contained in the Preamble are wanting, then I am bound to say that the Constitution is wanting, and from this angle I want to judge the Constitution.”
This quote (which also appears in Rathore’s book) highlights something very important about the Constitution. Bhargava was a staunch Gandhian who, during the course of the debates, expresses much unhappiness about the “un-Gandhian” nature of the Constitution. His unstinting praise of Ambedkar’s Preamble, however, is revealing. It shows immediately that the gap between the Gandhian and the Ambedkarite positions on the Constitution were perhaps not as big as the debates might make it out to be.
The Constitution is not just the text. It is not just the sum of its Articles, Schedules, etc. The words in the text are only the expression of certain fundamental ideas that animated the freedom movement and the members of the Constituent Assembly to give us this Constitution.
When the anti-CAA protesters read the Preamble to the Constitution, therefore, it is not just because it is the most accessible part of the Constitution, but because it is the purest distillation of what the Constitution is supposed to be. The protesters are reminding those in power that constitutional government is not just following the text of the Constitution but also adhering to its spirit and values in practice.