It is not every day that people play spoilsport during celebrations and fling unpleasant facts at festive events. Sometimes, they are unmindful of the impact of their words for those have the potential to dampen the joyful mood of the participants. But at other times they go unnoticed, even. The response of the CPI(M) to the invitation extended to it to attend the consecration ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya scheduled on January 22, 2024, is one such instance.
The party turned down the invitation sent to its general secretary Sitaram Yechury by the Sri Ram Mandir Construction Committee chairman Nripendra Misra saying religion is a personal choice and that this pageant was a politicisation of the religious beliefs of the people which was not in concord with the Constitution. In a carefully worded statement, the party said that its policy is to “respect religious beliefs and the right of each individual to pursue their belief” and that it “should not be converted into an instrument for political gain”.
The party held that its policy has been to respect religious beliefs and safeguard the right of every individual to pursue their belief. It added that “a fundamental principle of governance in India as reiterated by the Supreme Court is that the State in India, under the Constitution, should have no religious affiliation. This is being violated by the ruling regime in the organisation of the event”.
The party held the position that the inauguration ceremony has been converted into a State-sponsored event, with the Prime Minister, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister and others holding constitutional positions attending it. “This is straightforward politicisation of the religious belief of the people, which is not in consonance with the Constitution,” the party’s statement said.
Such an obvious statement would have gone unnoticed if it were issued in the decades that followed India’s Independence when secular principles held sway in the country’s polity. But the situation has changed since then and secularism is no more a position that finds wide acceptance. Never mind the lessons of history that show us how only nations that follow a rules-based order and secular governance have created wealth and made progress.
Constitution and constitutional morality, the principles that form the basis of this, are not a constant, however. They are very much a part of the dynamic society, and the founding fathers were quite mindful of this fact. Dr B.R. Ambedkar, chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution, had said in the Constituent Assembly that “the Constitution is merely a mechanism for the purpose of regulating the work of the various organs [of the State]. … What should be the policy of the state, how the society should be organised in its social and economic sides are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances.”
Parties can choose to keep themselves away from religious matters or they can feed on them and create electoral mileage. That is in the realm of political strategy best left to the respective leaderships. But it makes sense to remind people of what the Constitution has envisaged; else generations will be left clueless when it comes to deciding policy that will determine the trajectory of the nation.
The CPI(M) is sending us a reminder, lest we forget.
