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India celebrates its 71st Republic Day on January 26,2021 to commemorate the day when the Constitution of India came into effect. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was the chairman of the constitution drafting committee and is recognised as the “Father of the Constitution of India”. He had studied the constitutions of about 60 countries in order to take the best from among them. From Britain, he took the idea of parliamentary form of government and idea of single citizenship; from the U.S., the concept of fundamental rights and the government’s federal structure. From the Canadian constitution, Dr.Ambedkar borrowed the concept of division of power between the central and state governments. The Constitution of India which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949, and the day is now called as Constitution or National Law Day. The Indian constitution came into effect on January 26,1950 and is the country’s supreme law which not only defines the framework of the basic political principles, but also establishes what the different government institutions should do in terms of procedure, powers and duties. The Indian constitution contains fundamental rights, directive principles and the duties of citizens. It is the longest written constitution of any country in the world. The Parliament cannot override it because the Constitution was created by a special Constituent Assembly. In the early years after independence, the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the ruling Indian National Congress (or Congress Party) advocated for an Indian brand of secularism designed to hold the country’s disparate communities together under one roof. Nehru often pronounced that India’s composite culture was one of its greatest strengths. Today secularism has been pushed to the background by shrill nationalism that espoused ‘One Nation One People One Ideology One Culture’. Undoubtedly it does not mean a multicultural but a majoritarian society. While the freedom fighters won against might of the imperial British empire through non-violence, the constitution’s founding fathers prepared the blueprint to navigate the tricky terrain of India’s multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-racial diversity. Much has happened during the past decades since 1950 and today, the Indian constitution has undergone far reaching changes which, the founding fathers had warned against. The father of the Indian constitution, Dr.Ambedkar had reminded the people to uphold the three salient features of the Indian constitution. He wrote that, the nation’s politics must first “hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives.” Secondly he reminded that politics must “not lay liberties at the feet of even a great man, or trust him with power which enable him to subvert their institutions”. Thirdly, Ambedkar warned against “Bhakti or hero-worship” which he said, was “ a sure road to degradation and eventual dictatorship.” Perhaps these are being witnessed during the past decades as there has been the erosion to the spirit of the Indian constitution. India’s freedom fighters and constitution’s founding fathers were more nationalistic and patriotic than today’s demagogues as they put nation before self and even laid down their lives for Indian freedom and independence. On this day, it would be pertinent to remember that Republic Day is about the selfless sacrifices of the founding fathers for an India that guarantees fundamental rights to its citizens and to reflect its unity in diversity. <\/p>\n
Spirit of the republic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}