By Ranjona Banerji
I never thought I would see the day when a reputed media platform run by a reputed journalist would decide that referencing the Constitution of India in Parliament, a house sanctioned by the Constitution, is a bad idea.
And yet, The Print run by the venerable Shekhar Gupta, a former colleague and big name in walking, talking, cutting and cluttering, choose fit to write an edit saying just this:
“Rahul Gandhi’s nation-versus-union of states formulation to describe India is problematic and unnecessary. If he was seeking to make a point about diversity, it got lost in translation. Gandhi must understand academic debates don’t win elections. He doesn’t need to study ‘entire political science’ to communicate better with the people.”
From the first line, we infer that either The Print does not know or the edit writer does not know that it is not Rahul Gandhi’s “nation versus union of state formulation”. It is our, all of our, formulation, as stated in Article 1 of the Constitution of India: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”
Nowhere in the First Article does the word “nation” appear.
Thus, are we to deduce that it is The Print’s point that the Constitution in its opening lines mischaracterizes India? No matter how you spin the “dynasty” outrage against Rahul Gandhi, nor how much you believe in reincarnation, I am not certain about how travelling back in time to affect the writing of a document before you were born exactly fits even into the RSS’s notions of space-time, sci-fi, wibbly-wobbly, spooky-wooky so on. If we agree that Rahul Gandhi could not achieve this time-travel feat, then it is not his “formulation”.
I cannot recall any edits from The Print on how the Constitution of India needs to be corrected on this matter. I would be interested indeed to see more than 50 words on such a subject. I gather there is some simmering anger within the Sangh Parivar on the “Union of States” since the Constituent Assembly debates, and it is likely that The Print’s edit writer possibly steeped in RSS diatribes, has internalised this. Thus, “problematic and unnecessary”. For whom? For the RSS-BJP.
The Print then needs to have reworded the first line and said: “How dare Rahul Gandhi display his elitist nature by quoting the Constitution.”
It could have gone on to say what it wanted to say openly. Why pussyfoot around?
From the time Narendra Modi burst on to the national scene – not when he was merely chief minister of Gujarat – we have been schooled in how he represented the “subaltern classes” (a neat appropriation of a leftist term about discrimination by the ultra-discriminatory right) and was the non-elite India making a push for Delhi. Actually, there is enough evidence across India of politicians across India being from several classes – and the fact that education is not a prerequisite for standing for election is a nod to India’s many disparities. Modi is not the first. Nor is he really that simple in his lifestyle, his possessions, his desires. But the same journalists who excoriated Mayawati for owning a designer handbag or celebrating her birthday with a large cake to share with her followers, find it easy to ignore Modi’s designer sunglasses, massive wardrobe, hours spent on grooming, lavish make-up and so on.
For the past eight years, venerable journalists like Shekhar Gupta and Tavleen Singh have been telling us that “wine and cheese liberals” will never understand the great charm of Modi blah blah blah, same old story. They refer of course to their own friends and their little charmed circles of Delhi dinner parties.
Here we come to The Print’s second point: “lost in translation”. The only people who did not understand were the BJP and its stooges. Social media was filled with outrage manufactured by the BJP’s IT Cell, and here we find The Print’s edit writer sort of getting taken in.
The Print’s third point is that there is no point having “academic debates” if you want to win elections. When a politician speaks in Parliament, about distress over the state of the nation, is winning elections her or his only purpose? Is discussing the pain of the people “academic”?
And then we reach the most absurd ending to this 50-word defence of Modi: the sly reference to “entire political science” in single inverted commas, which is of course Modi’s lie about his MA degree which cannot be found anyway. What The Print is saying here is what the RSS wants it to: that Rahul Gandhi, even without a fake degree, cannot win elections the way Modi can because he does not understand politics.
It is here that you fully comprehend the contempt that the RSS, Modi and The Print have for the Constitution of India and all the institutions which take their purpose from the Constitution. This is where The Print appears to applaud the ongoing destruction as it mocks Rahul Gandhi for speaking up.
Somewhere further along the Constitution comes Article 19 and the power it gives to the press. And soon to be withheld from all, hopes The Print.
No?
Prove me wrong then.
Exercise Article 19 and expose, call to account Modi and the rest of your clan who are taking India down.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia every Tuesday and Friday. Her views here are personal.
Hmmm. Hmmmm. We asked. He answered. Here’s Dr Bhaskar Das in the February 4 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…
