Reclaiming Our Democracy

Arup Kumar Sen

Violating the civil/human rights of the citizens/people has become an organic part of the paradigm of governance being pursued by the BJP government ruling at the Centre and in some of the Indian States. Unmaking of citizenship rights of a large section of the people is very much a part of the strategy of State Power. The implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, the proposal that the NRC be implemented across India and passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) amply bear testimony to it. The urgent ethical   collective responsibility in this time of national crisis is to reclaim our constitutional rights.

In the present context, a diverse group of civil society organizations, social movements and mass organisations from across India organised a Special Kisan Session of the Janta Parliament, in solidarity with the ongoing farmers’ protests against the Farm Laws recently enacted by the Central Government. The People’s Agenda being pursued by the Janta Parliament testify that the rights of the people of India enshrined in the Constitution are getting a new life in our troubled times. This reminds us of the classic statement of Ranajit Guha, the eminent historian of our time, made in the bloody decade of the 1970s: “...it will be fair to conclude that democracy in India has long been dead, if it was ever alive at all...The corpse, however, might revive, rise from its grave and walk our parched plains and dusty streets yet again”.

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Jan 20, 2021