As India celebrates the constitution day, we must be also mindful of the contradictions in our society. Famously Babasaheb Ambedkar talked about the contradictions that India entered on the day when the constitution came into force. On the political level, Indians will have equality, but the social and economic structures will continue to deny that to the majority. The contradictions have not been resolved today, they continue to haunt the thoughtful minds and threaten the constitution that constituted India into people’s republic.

A national quest should be to bring the denied contradictions into public and common scrutiny. The change will begin only when we accept that we live in contradictions and the contradictions demand our attention. Social movements and economic movements are therefore ways to destroy the contradictions and make India a truly democratic country.

As Lincoln said, the constitution must destroy what tries to be above it and rule what is below it. The government is the creation of the constitution and hence every government must follow the constitution, but as anti-constitution forces are becoming stronger and even camouflaged in the democratic institutions, we must safeguard the constitutional morality.

The constitution is now being bypassed and even distorted by the powerful agents and the fascist agencies like RSS are trying to impose the Brahmanical constitution of Manu. While politically we are governed by the enlightened constitution, socially we are governed by the constitution of Manu which has taken deep roots in India’s public consciousness. Creation of the public who truly believe in the constitutional values of liberty, equality, and fraternity. In fact, democracy in the scheme of Babasaheb Ambedkar is the way of life, religion, perhaps only religion in terms liberty, equality and fraternity that humans need for survival of the human society.

The questioning of the old religion becomes the democratic process of releasing people from the old belief in the constitution of Manu. As we celebrate this day, we have to celebrate every day every moment fraternity, the interrelatedness of humanity, the reverence and respect for fellow human beings. We have crossed the major hurdle by creating the constitution that gives us freedom, we have to cross even the bigger hurdle by working towards freedom: social and economic. But in order to do that we need the freedom of mind and freedom of mind is the ultimate ground to resolve the social and economic contradictions.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale