What BJP Learnt From Congress

All parties manipulate community sensibilities for electoral gains, all govts game the Constitution

- R Jagannathan

In the first half of his article, ‘What BJP can teach Congress’ (TOI, August 29), Hilal Ahmed rightly argues that BJP is pushing its political agenda by creating new ideas about India, while Congress and opposition parties are stuck in sterile debates over protecting the Constitution. But I challenge the second half, where he suggests that BJP has effectively carried the day by reducing the Constitution to a mere rule-book and refusing to engage with the spirit of its hallowed principles.

He says that “Hindutva Constitutionalism” is a “legal-political mechanism that is created to operationalise the doctrine of (BJP’s) New India.” This is both an astute observation and a red herring: It is astute to the extent that it shows that no matter what the Constitution says, the executive and the legislature can find ways to subvert its spirit. But a Constitution that has been amended more than 100 times in 75 years can hardly be called a principled document true to its original ideals.