Why Rahul Gandhi Is Right About The Origin Of India Constitution?

By Sushil Kutty

Who is the more confused politician, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi or the BJP politicians who kowtow to every statement Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes? So, Prime Minister Modi said that “Bharat Ka Samvidhan 1949 mei likha gaya tha” and it should be the last word on the subject! But LoP Rahul Gandhi says the Indian Constitution is “thousands of years old” and the BJP-burg is fit to capsize!

The BJP is arguing that the Constitution was “drafted in 1949 and implemented in 1950″, period. The same people who never fail to hark back to the antiquity of “India that is Bharat”, going back to tens of 1000s of years, when rishis held councils and Maharishi Valmiki wrote the Ramayana.

For once, Rahul Gandhi alluded to the concept of a ‘Vedic Bharat’ and certified Hindus cannot hold themselves from taking him to the cleaners. The BJP is accusing Rahul Gandhi of disrespecting the ‘Father of the Constitution’ Babasaheb Ambedkar and insisting that the Congress is not only clueless but speechless as well.

Shouldn’t the Bharatiya Janata Party, the self-styled Hindu nationalist party, nay the entire Sangh Parivar, welcome Rahul Gandhi’s “Constitution is 1000s of years old” statement rather than calling the comment “very strange”, if only because the statement harks back to a time of Hindu glory?

The BJP fielded Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi to prove Rahul Gandhi an ignorant and explain why Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared November 26 as ‘Constitution Day’? Modi, said Trivedi, thought it important to “educate misguided youth” like Rahul Gandhi.

“Look, Rahul Gandhi ji, who is the eternally youthful leader of Indian politics and eternally restless, keeps sharing strange and bizarre kinds of knowledge. I believe that even Congress party leaders must be left completely confused and speechless after hearing him.”

Rahul Gandhi had on April 7, at the Samvidhan Suraksha Sammelan in Patna, said that the Constitution of India is “thousands of years old”, which was immediately picked up by the BJP to slam-slander Rahul Gandhi.

Question is, does the BJP believe that there was no ‘India that is Bharat’ before November 26, 1949? And shouldn’t Trivedi correct Prime Minister Narendra Modi by making an honest appraisal of Rahul Gandhi’s statement and admitting that the Congress Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha had hit the nail on the head?

This is what LoP Rahul Gandhi said: “People say that the Constitution was drafted in 1947. However, I believe that this Constitution is thousands of years old, and it includes thoughts of Ambedkarji, Phuleji, Gandhi ji, Nehru ji, Guru Nanak ji and Kabir. The Constitution contains the thoughts of those whom India respects.”

And this is what BJP’s intellectual fountainhead Trivedi said: “Now, he recently said in a statement that the Indian Constitution was not written only in 1947. Perhaps Rahul Gandhi is unaware that the Constitution of India was finalized on November 26, 1949.”

Trivedi linked Rahul Gandhi’s “thousands of years” statement to “Congress party never welcomed Constitution Day and, in a way, opposed it. Now it becomes clear just how shallow and superficial their understanding of the Constitution is.”

Then, stepping into confusion, the clear-headed Trivedi went on to add that he found Rahul Gandhi’s “thousands of years” claim “very strange” because “this is the same Congress party that never believed the nation itself was thousands of years old. These are the same people who used to say that the country was built by the Mughals or by the British.”

So, who is confused, Rahul Gandhi or Sudanshu Trivedi, and who of the two spoke out of ignorance? The question was asked in a different way by a Pakistani Social Media influencer who makes a living by pitting Indian and Pakistani “experts” against each other on almost every issue related to India and Pakistan.

The question posed this week, after the Wakf Act was passed, was “Is India a secular country or Hindu Rashtra?” The Pakistani expert linked “secular” with the Indian Constitution and said India’s Constitution never once mentions that India is a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. The Indian expert, a professor of international law, countered that the Constitution speaks in the preamble itself of “India that is Bharat” and that “Bharat was Hindu for thousands of years.”

The professor didn’t know he was echoing Rahul Gandhi’s sentiment to a great extent. By opposing Rahul Gandhi’s claim, the BJP’s confusion had come to the fore even if Sudanshu Trivedi contends that the “Congress’s confusion — whether in its ideology or now in Rahul Gandhi’s statements — has become more evident than ever.”

More likely, it could be because both parties are angling for the Dalit vote in the Bihar assembly elections and Babasaheb Ambedkar’s birth anniversary is round the corner. “Did or did not Rahul Gandhi disrespect Babasaheb Ambedkar?” is a question that will find its answer in who corners the Dalit vote in the Bihar assembly elections? There is also the question: Who is the ‘Chunavi Hindu’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi or LoP Rahul Gandhi? (IPA Service)