I n recent times, on TV, we can see many people waving pocket editions of the Indian Constitution. At first, I thought of this as a comical gesture. In fact, I was reminded of punters at Mahalakshmi Racecourse in Mumbai who wander around with little booklets providing details of horses, jockeys, owners, trainers, and handicaps for all the races of the day.
These punters waving their booklets also look like entertaining clowns. So, what exactly are these Constitution-wavers (trust that is a valid hyphenated word in the language of our erstwhile rulers!) up to? If they were just providing comic relief, we could let it pass as one more example of puerile leftism. This is especially the case when political parties in an alliance that includes the Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist are claiming to support constitutional democracy.
They have not read Marx or Lenin, both of whom were critical of bourgeois democracy. When the Petrograd Soviet set out to destroy Russia’s only imaginative constitution in centuries, the hapless Kerensky was forced to find out that he was foolishly and pathetically trying to defend obsolete bourgeois ideas. To even remotely think that Chairmen who believe that power stems from the barrel of a gun would support a constitution is to live in a world of fantasy.
Why then are these ignorant and misguided lefties waving pocket constitutions in a farcical manner? What is their agenda? Remember Gramsci; remember the Frankfurt School; remember Pol Pot? L.
