One nation under_the_constitution-asiatic-bansari_sheth_mem_lec-2020-08-18

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Text of the 27th Smt Bansari Sheth Memorial Lecture delivered online on 18th
August 2020 for the Asiatic Society of Mumbai.
Judge, High Court, Bombay. I must thank Ms Maithili Parikh and Mr Rohil
Bandekar, advocates, for their assistance in research.

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In India, nationalism was once synonymous with the freedom
struggle. For a colonized people, for whom unity was needed to
weave together different peoples and regions with diverse
cultures to obtain freedom from British rule, nationalism was a
liberating force, a promise of equality and freedom from colonial
subjugation. This spirit of nationalism was rooted in ideas of
progress and development, not only politically, but also socially,
economically, and culturally. On the one hand, it was
accompanied with a revival of religion, culture, languages, art,
and more, and on the other hand, there was development of a
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as we know it and for the rights as guaranteed in the
Constitution. This is quite in keeping with the agenda of cultural
nationalism, which strives through generating a climate of
intolerance and intimidation to keep civil society in a state of
constant agitation by subjecting it to constant attack.
Cultural nationalism, by any definition, is a rogue version
of nationalism which is already present in the concepts of the

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wounds and defeat inflicted by imaginary enemies, who always
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education. They believe that India should be defined not in
western liberal terms, but in what are termed as ancient
civilizational values. The contention is that India must be
synonymous with the majority traditions and a thousand years
of invasions and invaders cannot be the basis to define this ancient
land and its people. Historically, nationalism as an ideology has
howeve

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the social majority as different, incompatible, unworthy, or
otherwise unwanted or ostracized. This act results in the
dichotomist formation of an us-group and a them-group, or in
some places an in-group and out-group. This exclusion is usually
based on some external identifier; such as, ethnicity, nationality,
gender, accent, etc. The extremity of this exclusion can range
from ignoring students of other nationalities to committing
genocide. It is a process more serious than individual
xenophobia. Othering is a process that begins in institutions of
power and filters down to the people; indeed, it is a corporate
xenophobia imposed upon the people of the nation through
political rhetoric, the media, national historiography, and
perpetuated through socialization. The process of othering
serves two purposes: (a) it serves to construct the self-identity of
the nation and (b) it provides a scapegoat to the nation for its
present and past t
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n its paradoxical appeal to and simultaneous attack upon
democratic practice, populism exploits and amplifies basic
ctions become corrupted and dysfunctional when they
cease to have a meaningful relationship to the actual behaviour
emotional affiliation with a particular politician rather than any
judgment
are hardly the democratic ideal. For elections to serve their
proper function, there is a need for a continuous flow of
reasonably accurate information about the interaction between
government policies and external conditions. ... at some point,
information failures can become so extensive and asymmetrically
tilted in favour of one coalition or candidate that they render the

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in
Romesh Thapar v State of Madras12
], there was no discussion
of the process by which the framers of the Constitution chose
deliberately to omit sedition; no reference to the Press
ion and, worst of all, no reference to
the full bench ruling of the Allahabad High Court [in Ram
Nandan v State13
sedition amid copious quotes from old, obsolete English
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defined as every citizen having access to human rights, and
recognised not just by territory but also by reliable and just
governance. Nationalism is not expressed merely by raising a flag
or shouting a slogan, but by safe-guarding rights and ensuring
good

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The relation between the nation and religion is historically and
conceptually complicated. Religion has been both integral to,
and at odds with, the formation and continuation of nations.

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Proved . A fact is said to be proved when, after considering
the matters before it, the Court either believes it to exist, or
considers its existence so probable that a prudent man ought,
under the circumstances of the particular case, to act upon the
supposition that it exists.

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-se
religious identities which is what politicians want when the
urgent need is for citizens to demand that religion becomes
immaterial to governance. Instead of reflexively thinking of
other religions, we can define ourselves as 21st century liberal
democrats who demand a modern government insulated from all
religion, with no special benefits to any one group. Utopian, yes,
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solve the communal problem is a historically dubious
proposition. Modern religious politics is born in the crucible of
democracy and nationalism, not theology. ... We do not need
another version of what it means to be a good Hindu. Who can
be presumptuous enough to define or benchmark that? What we

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need is a genuine commitment to freedom, with all its risks, self-
doubts and fashioning and refashioning of identities. ... the
deeper question ... is the growing tolerance for prejudice and the
unleashing of a ferocious darkness. Let us name the beast for
what it is and not hide behind the pieties of secularism or
religion. Recovering the project will not mean a return to
religion, but a confidence in the promise of a new freedom
struggle to salvage individual dignity and rights, not continually
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lf-realization and
autonomous thinking that is lacking today. This is what
decivilization is: a society lacking the capacity and culture for
producing dissenting individuals. ... the lack of courage to
criticize our meaningless existence has become the defining trait
of our society. This is accompanied by a rejection and ignorance

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birth canal. Even after the brain folded in, under and around
itself, it still needed to add important skills. The only solution
was to drop some abilities to make room for more important
ones. No doubt fascinating gifts were passed up or lost. Based on
what other animals evolved, we might have tried sophisticated
navigational systems that relied on magnetism or echolocation
(like bats or whales). Or a complex sense of smell that made a
simple stroll the equivalent of reading a gossip column (like
dogs). ... The best survival trick was language, one worth
sacrificing large amounts of trunk space for, areas that might
once have housed feats of empathy that would put extrasensory
perception to shame. ...
What the brain really needed was space without volume.
So it took a radical leap and did something unparalleled in the
history of life on Earth. It began storing information and
memories outside itself, on stone, papyrus, paper, computer
chips and film. This astonishing feat is so familiar a part of our
and rather strange solution to what was essential a packing
problem: just store your essentials elsewhere and avoid

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1
KUMAR, Virendra (ed.): Committees and Commissions in India, Vol 14:
1976; Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi, 1993.
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GARNER
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Thapar, et. al., op. cit.
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Luthra & Mukhija, id.
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The Use of Othering in the Formation of a Nationalist
Society; Portland State University; accessed 14th August 2020 at
https://www.academia.edu/1338990/The_Use_of_Othering_in_the
_Formation_of_a_Nationalist_Society.
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WALLER, James: Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide
and Mass Killing; Oxford University Press, 2002.
10
GINSBURG, Tom, and Aziz Z. Haq: How to Save a Constitutional
Democracy, University of Chicago Press, 2018.
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Thapar, et. al., op. cit.
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Romesh Thapar v State of Madras, 1950 SCR 594 : AIR 1950 SC 124.
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BROCKELL, Gillian:
, The Washington Post, 19 December 2019, accessed on 17th August
2020 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/12/18/republic-if-
you-can-keep-it-did-ben-franklin-really-say-impeachment-days-favorite-
quote/