Indira Jaising on implications of the Modi years. Report on a talk at SOAS

NB: A perceptive talk by one of India’s most experienced constitutional lawyers. I will add that there are certain grievous matters that democratic-minded persons the world over should take note of, viz., the regular deployment of mob violence and political assassination in India (as also the rest of South Asia), which has been ongoing for a century or more. It is so ‘normal’ that we don’t talk about it or subject it to serious study. Here is one article I wrote on the matter, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. The other major issue is that all these developments are not Modi’s doing, but the implementation of the ideological design of the RSS. He may have irritated his mentors by his arrogance, but there is no doubt whatsoever that this regime has been and continues to be, an RSS regime. I will add more to this comment soon. DS

(Reported by Jairus Banaji)

Indira Jaising presented a lucid analysis of the Modi years at a lecture in SOAS on Wednesday (June 19). The key points: Modi’s years in power at the centre are the second period in India’s political history when the Constitution of the country suffered erosion (the first being the Emergency, which was otherwise very different). So far the BJP has not needed to change the Constitution (except in the two respects in which it has) because Modi’s approach is and has always been simply to ‘𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑜𝑟𝑒 the Constitution’. It has, in any case, in numerous ways repudiated the Constitution, with no opposition from the judiciary. It has tried to promote 𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑛 𝑑ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑎 as a norm superior to and 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑣𝑒 the Constitution. It has systematically abused the criminal justice system by guaranteeing immunity for its supporters whilst jailing opponents under UAPA, that is on fabricated charges related to ‘terrorism’.

It has undermined parliament through its systematic use of ordinances and money bills. She argued that the freedom struggle and the passing of the Constitution represented a decisive 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘 with the past, meaning not just with India’s colonial past but with the history and practices of pre-colonial India as well. So when Modi and Shah talk about ‘decolonising’ India, what they have in mind is reverting to some mythical (‘Vedic’) past that existed long before colonialism.

On the Emergency she pointed out that this was done within the framework of provisions in the constitution allowing for a declaration of a state of emergency, although what was involved then was a large-scale suspension of civil rights and the jailing of thousands of opponents. She rejected the characterization of the Modi years as an ‘undeclared emergency’, saying it was much more than that. The drive to usher in a Hindu state by 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 the Constitution was the chief aim of getting those ‘400 seats’ but that of course has been temporarily thwarted.

In any case, India is already 𝑑𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑜 a Hindu state, she argued. The two respects in which the Constitution ℎ𝑎𝑠 been changed is (1) in terms of allowing reservation for upper castes, and (2) in revoking Kashmir’s special status. The recent election was about defending the Constitution of India from the kind of changes the BJP has in mind, formally altering the country’s secular character and bringing in a Hindu state 𝑑𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑟𝑒. The real hero of this election, she said, was the Constitution. Finally, the new Criminal Law Bills proposed by the regime will transform India into a police state, if they are passed.

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