JANUARY 26, this year, is the third Republic Day under the Modi regime.  This has been a period when each and every institution of the republic has seen changes which mark the subversion of the founding principles of the republic. 

Dr BR Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian constitution, remarked “However good a constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad”.  The men who are at present entrusted with the running of the republic – Narendra Modi and his cohorts who all belong to the RSS – are those who are committed to re-design the republican constitution which was established 67 years ago.

The way they are going about it is to change the very nature and structure of the institutions which are so vital for the secular-democratic republic.  No institution is immune to the authoritarian-Hindutva impulses.

The recent period has seen the efforts of the Modi regime to breach the integrity of two important institutions of the State – the armed forces and the judiciary.

The end of the year 2016 witnessed the appointment of the new chief of Army Staff. General Bipin Rawat was appointed as the army chief superseding two generals senior to him.  The seniority-cum-merit principle established in the army was violated.  Soon after, the engineer-in-chief, who is the head of the Military Engineering Service, was appointed.  Lt. Gen. Suresh Sharma was appointed superseding the senior most officer, Lt. Gen. Vishwambhar Singh.  The signal is clear.  The Modi government will henceforth pick and choose senior military personnel.  This will open the way for the politicisation of the higher echelons of the armed forces and provide opportunities for ambitious officers to display fealty to the ideology of the rulers.

The tussle between the Supreme Court and the government has been going on for months now regarding the appointment of judges to the High Courts and the Supreme Court. The tussle is around the provisions that should be included in the memorandum of procedure to be adopted for appointments. Instead of working for a better legislation to broad base the selection and appointment of the judiciary, the Modi government is seeking to get a veto power on who should be appointed as a judge in the higher judiciary. Ominously, the government has proposed a clause for vetting persons recommended by the collegium of the Supreme Court on national security grounds.  The fact that a large number of the nominees recommended by the collegium are being held up from being appointed by the government is the way crude pressure is being applied on the higher judiciary to accept the government diktats.  This attitude of the Modi government is already having an impact on a section of the judges.  They feel obliged to display their loyalty to the powers that be.

The manner in which the demonetisation decree was effected has damaged another institution – the Reserve Bank of India.  The Central Board of the RBI was peremptorily asked to discuss the withdrawal of the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes barely hours before the prime minister’s announcement.  The way in which finance ministry officials have directed the RBI to issue notifications and change them abruptly has damaged the image of the RBI.

As far as the bureaucracy is concerned, the prime minister’s office has centralised all powers with regard to the higher echelons of the civil services.  Secretaries of departments know very well who the real boss is and an atmosphere of servility and sycophancy prevails. 

Various constitutional bodies like the Law Commission of India are being packed with RSS men and they have no hesitation in acting on behalf of the partisan agenda of the RSS-BJP combine.  The subversion of the institutions of higher education and research has proceeded apace.  All the central universities are now being directed from the HRD ministry with any semblance of autonomy for these institutions being given up.  The use of partisan vice chancellors to suppress academic freedom and democratic rights is being brazenly seen in JNU, HCU and Haryana University. 

The process of de-secularising educational and cultural institutions is accompanied by another assault on the federal principle inherent in the constitution.  The Modi regime has twice invoked Article 356 so far – in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.  It has handpicked RSS veterans as governors of states.  Some of these governors such as of Assam and Tripura openly advocate Hindutva and Hindu communal views misusing their constitutional position.  What can happen to state’s rights under the Modi regime, if they get some legal leeway, can be seen in Delhi where the Kejriwal government is left with no worthwhile legislative and administrative powers. 

While this tampering and abuse of the institutions of the republic are underway, the country is also simultaneously experiencing the worst effects of the aggressive neo-liberal policies of the BJP government. 

India has reached new heights of inequality under the Modi regime.  According to the latest Oxfam report on inequality, the richest one percent in India holds 58 percent of the country’s total wealth.  This is higher than the global figure of about 50 percent.  The collective wealth of 84 Indian billionaires is worth 248 billion dollars. 

The savage demonetisation will only aggravate this inequality further, as millions of Indians have suffered loss of their livelihood, income and savings.  Inequalities are further widening with the Modi regime’s drive to privatise health care and education which makes these basic services more expensive and beyond the reach of the poor. 

Democracy becomes increasingly a formal right for citizens when faced with this massive economic disempowerment.  Verily, Dr Ambedkar’s warning that political democracy cannot coexist with glaring social and economic inequalities is coming true. 

Republic Day 2017 is, therefore, an occasion for sober stocktaking of how the regime inimical to the secular-democratic ethos of the constitution is going about devaluing and undermining its institutions.  They should not have a free run.  They must be stopped. 

(January 25, 2016)