The Death of Freedom

The Constitutional freedoms that our ancestors were martyred for are under siege in modern India

- Anand Teltumbde

SEVENTY-seven years ago, our martyrs won freedom from British colonial rule. Three years later, we gave ourselves a Constitution that guaranteed a plethora of freedoms, inspired not by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) but the indigenous ethos of our own freedom movement. Today, having traversed into the Amrit Kaal, these guarantees appear to have expired, needing a new guarantee from our supreme ruler that the Constitution itself will survive. If the likes of Bhagat Singh were to see the state of India's freedom today, they would certainly ask themselves what was wrong with the British rule that they went to the gallows fighting them.

Bhagat Singh rather had presciently realised the futility of freedom if it just meant transfer of power from British capitalists to Indian capitalists. Precisely the same happened in 1947. The Congress party, which assumed power after the departure of the British, essentially represented the capitalists and landlords. It continued with the colonial state apparatus that had ample scope for liberal vibes in consonance with the new Constitution, which was a rehash of the British Constitution. It could adopt a republican camouflage to manage the Keynesian mixed economic model with heavy state investment in infrastructure that would facilitate capital to prosper. In the process, some benefits trickled down to the common people. Over the next 40 years, it faced several crises, which it responded to with an increased authoritarianism culminating in the declaration of Emergency in 1975 and thereafter a switch to a neoliberal economic model, representing the rise of conservative and anti-socialist forces. It came handy for the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which was hitherto a marginal force, to come out with its communal gimmicks and grab political power in 1998 by coalition and on its own in 2014.