CONCEPT – CONSTITUTIONAL MORALITY

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CONCEPT – CONSTITUTIONAL MORALITY

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• What is Constitutional morality? It means adherence to the core principles of the constitutional democracy. Its scope not limited only to following the constitutional provisions literally but is broad enough to include commitment to inclusive and democratic political processes in which both individual and collective interests are satisfied.
• Which values does it encompass? It encompasses ensuring various Constitutional values like rule of law, social justice, democratic ethos, individual freedom, judicial independence, egalitarianism, and sovereignty.
• How to ensure it? The practical percolation of these values in governance and citizen entitlements requires a sensitive State apparatus –  

1. Parliament that is representative in a true sense, 
2. Executive that is responsive and empathic, and 
3. A judiciary that is vigilant and empowering.

• Morality in Laws: There are many laws made by Parliament that show great moral commitment like Food Security Law, CrPC amendments made in 2013 in favour of women etc. Multiple judicial verdicts too have tried it.
• Preamble to our Constitution: It contains the most worthy goals whose realization requires greatest commitment to morality. Corruption-free, transparent and accountable governance will go a long way in making one and all in India realize their potential : the sum and substance of Constitutional morality.

• Two excerpts from Ambedkar's speeches in the Constituent Assembly:
• The first one is from his speech on November 4, 1948 while introducing the draft constitution for debate. The second one is from one of Ambedkar's reply to the Constituent Assembly debate on November 25, 1949 referenced in Constituent Assembly Debates, Volume 12, 1978. 
• Excerpt 1: 
• "Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only top dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic." 
• Excerpt 2:
• "It is quite possible in a country like India---where democracy from its long disuse must be regarded as something quite new---there is danger of democracy giving place to dictatorship. It is quite possible for the newborn democracy to retain its form but give place to dictatorship in fact. If there is a landslide, the danger of the second possibility becoming actuality is much greater.
• If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgement we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means, we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But when constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these constitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.
• The second thing we must do is to observe the caution which John Stuart Mills has given to all who are interested in the maintenance of democracy, namely, not 'to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with power which enable him to subvert their institutions'. There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. But there are limits to greatness. As has been well said by Irish poet David O'Connell, no man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty.
• This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country. For in India, Bhakti, or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship."

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