Basic constitutional framework of rights and obligations is under stress – Vice President VICE PRESIDENT PRESENTS JAMNALAL BAJAJ AWARDS-2008
	18:44 IST

The Vice President of India Shri M. Hamid Ansari has said that the politics of our polity cannot be confined to the many little corners of India; and neither should our citizens be confined to their corners in their vast land. The basic Constitutional framework of rights and obligations is today under stress. Political parties and groups, operating within the ambit of the Constitution, tend to obstruct the exercise of fundamental rights by citizens. Equally disconcerting is the propensity in various quarters to explain such behaviour, or explain it away. He was addressing after presenting the “Jamnalal Bajaj Awards - 2008” at a function in Mumbai, today. The Vice President said that the world today is in the midst of financial woes caused by irresponsible speculative market activity, aptly described as ‘casino capitalism’. Its principal victim everywhere is the common man. This raises questions about the efficacy, and the morality, of the system. He said that we have confined Gandhiji to tokenism– remembering him twice a year and confining his image to statues and currency notes. Forgotten in the process is his message that the poor of India, who constitute the vast majority, have no stronger defining identity than their poverty. His ideals did not exist in a vacuum. They were revisited in response to the issues of the day. Gandhian values consciously led us to the Constitution of India. He said that the greatest challenge of our times is the skillful accommodation and management of our multiple identities. The Constitution anticipated and visualized a framework for it in fundamental rights. Each right creates a counterpart duty on fellow citizens and the State and a failure to discharge it amounts to a denial of right. Despite the clarity of this structure, defaults premised on unconstitutional perceptions do arise. Following is the text of the Vice President’s address: “It is indeed a privilege for me to be present here on the occasion of presentation of the Jamnalal Bajaj Awards 2008. The winners of this year’s awards humble us in the depth of their commitment, intensity of purpose and scope of action. Smt. Phoolbasan Yadav, who has received the award for uplift and welfare of women and children, is a shining example that public service knows no class barriers. Having experienced poverty personally and deprived of education beyond Grade Seven, she devoted herself to the strengthening of the Self-help Group Movement of Women in Chhattisgarh. Her life and her work inspire common women to work for their social rights, economic empowerment and their rightful place in the polity and society. Shri Tushar Kanjilal’s work of over three decades in the Sunderbans region focused on integrated rural development and ecological conservation has relied on the application of appropriate technology for the benefit of the rural poor. He has held fast to his belief that the mangrove forests of the Sunderbans must be saved and has translated his belief into a concrete programme of action. Shri Biswanath Pattnaik’s work in social welfare and rural development continues in the ninth decade of his life. The impact of his work in Kandhamal district of Orissa presents to us an uplifting and alternate vision to the grim reality of violence there in recent months, happenings that have shamed the nation and brought disrepute in the eyes of civilized people the world over. Mr. Louis Campana was been given the international award for promoting Gandhian values outside India. He is a true disciple of Gandhiji who has demonstrated that Ahimsa and Satyagraha are relevant and practical belief systems in this day and age, irrespective of geographical and historical backgrounds. Each of these distinguished personalities deserve our gratitude because as a people, we have confined Gandhiji to tokenism – remembering him twice a year and confining his image to statues and currency notes. Forgotten in the process is his message that the poor of India, who constitute the vast majority, have no stronger defining identity than their poverty. Today is also the occasion to remember Gandhiji’s fifth son, Jamnalalji, in whose name and honour these awards have been constituted. Mahatmaji had described him as ‘a merchant prince who placed at my disposal his ample possession and became guardian of my time and my health and he did it all for the public good’. There is another reason for remembering Jamnalal Bajaj. The world today is in the midst of financial woes caused by irresponsible speculative market activity, aptly described as ‘casino capitalism’. Its principal victim everywhere is the common man. This raises questions about the efficacy, and the morality, of the system. A few years back Philip Bobbitt had described the characteristics of the market-state. ‘Such a state,’ he wrote, ‘depends on the capital markets and, to a lesser degree, on modern multinational business networks to create stability in the world economy, in preference to management by national or transnational political bodies’. He added that ‘the market state is largely indifferent to the norms of justice, or for that matter to any particular set of moral values so long as the law does not act as an impediment to economic competition’. Jamnalal Bajaj would not have subscribed to such a depiction of the market. He imbibed and espoused the Gandhian ideal of trusteeship and reduced these to a set of rules of ethical behaviour in business. In our culture this is known as the dharma of a Vaishya. It was upheld as the norm even when not actually observed. Gandhiji and his ideals did not exist in a vacuum. They were revisited in response to the issues of the day. Gandhian values consciously led us to the Constitution of India. The core of the Constitution is embodied in its Preamble, and in its resolve to secure fraternity to all citizens, ‘assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and the integrity of the nation’. In legal terms, this fraternity is reflected in our common citizenship. In socio-political terms, fraternity is founded on the acceptance of diversity in all dimensions as the foundation of our society and polity. This fraternity of Indian citizenship has emerged as our primary identity in the modern world; it co-exists alongside our other multiple identities including those defined by class, religion, region, language, community and the like. These contribute to the Indian identity without distracting from it. The moment distractions begin, they end up diluting the Indian identity. Indeed, the greatest challenge of our times is the skillful accommodation and management of our multiple identities. The Constitution anticipated and visualized a framework for it in fundamental rights. Each right creates a counterpart duty on fellow citizens and the State and a failure to discharge it amounts to a denial of right. Despite the clarity of this structure, defaults premised on unconstitutional perceptions do arise. Jawaharlal Nehru had the vision to anticipate these and administer a warning that has contemporary relevance. Speaking in the Lok Sabha on December 21, 1955 in a debate on the Report of the States Reorganisation Commission, he cautioned: ‘May I also suggest, for the consideration of this House, that while Members here represent their constituencies, they represent something more? Each Member is not only a Member for this or that area of India, but a Member for India as a whole. He represents India, and at no time can he afford to forget this basic fact that India is more than the little corner of India that he represents. This is more necessary when we have to face certain forces which may be called separatist. People’s attention is being diverted to local, parochial, state and provincial problems and they are forgetting the larger problems of India’. ‘We must’, he went on to add, ‘take a total view of India. We must, by Constitution, convention or otherwise, guarantee that a person, whether he lives on this side of the border of a State or the other, will have the fullest right and opportunities of progress according to his own way’. The politics of our polity cannot be confined to the many little corners of India; and neither should our citizens be confined to their corners in this vast land. This basic constitutional framework of rights and obligations is today under stress. Political parties and groups, operating within the ambit of the Constitution, tend to obstruct the exercise of fundamental rights by citizens. Equally disconcerting is the propensity in various quarters to explain such behaviour, or explain it away. The challenge is principally in the urban landscape. Today 30 percent of our population lives in cities; it would be 50 percent by 2050. Have the implications of this in social terms dawned on us? Cultural chauvinism and linguistic jingoism are inherently exclusionary. Would there be space for them in these urban conglomerates? Nehru had urged us ‘to keep in mind the emotional integration of India’. The time has come to act upon it with a sense of urgency. Would a lead in the matter be taken by Mumbai, India’s premier city? Mumbai represents the cosmopolitan spirit of India. It embodies the entrepreneurial energy and the will to succeed among common citizens. Any other depiction of Mumbai would be to lessen it and deny its history and its ethos. What is demanded of every citizen, political actor and agent of the State is scrupulous adherence, in letter and spirit, to our Constitution – no more and no less. That remains the only binding document that “We, the People of India” have given to ourselves. I once again congratulate the winners of the Jamnalal Bajaj Awards today. I thank Shri Rahul Bajaj for inviting me today”. SK/BS