The Indian Constitution has been a hot topic in this election. Some political parties claim that this election is about upholding the constitution. The Prime Minister had earlier declared that the spirit of the Constitution is the spirit of India. Almost all jurists and judges mention the importance of the spirit of the Constitution.
The Constitution is a document that everyone can read. Does the concept of spirit evoke something that is not explicitly stated in the document? Is it just an interpretation by some? Why are so many people today suddenly bringing up both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution? Does this mean that the spirit is different from the words of the text?
The Constitution is the people’s book. It belongs to each of us. It affects the lives of each of us, whatever our background. It not only protects us, but also liberates us. However, it is not an easy text to read. How many people have actually read that book and can read it? It’s over 400 pages long. It is full of definitions, qualifications, and explanations for various acts. If this is a book of the people, for the people, then I think all the people can understand it.
While the language may be deceptively simple, it can also be bureaucratic and elaborate. Consider the example of fundamental rights. His first two rights on this basis are the right to equality and the right against discrimination by the state. The concepts of equality and discrimination are not easy to understand. First, there is ambiguity in the meanings of these words. Second, these words are part of sentences, and their meaning is limited by their structure. Third, these rulings do not seem to match the reality on the ground for millions of citizens. Fourth, these sentences are followed by different types of qualifications.
For the Constitution to work, these words must be interpreted by experts in these fields, including lawyers, judges, and academics. The meanings of words such as equality, justice, and discrimination cannot be taken as the general meanings that people have for them. These have become jargon, and scholars from various fields spend a lot of time (and words!) trying to figure out what they mean.
If this is true of two simple lines in this book, imagine what it would mean to read the entire book. Who will actually read it besides lawyers and judges? Forget about the people on the street, it would be surprising if even a fraction of politicians read this book.
This is why we can understand the importance of the preamble to the Constitution. The Preamble enumerates the vision of the Constitution on one page. In this sense, the Preamble can be called the spirit of the Constitution. Although this image is appealing, it is also problematic because it reduces the complexity of reading the text to a few core concepts. There is also intense debate about the meaning of the preamble’s core concepts such as democracy, justice, equality, fraternity, and secularism. Is the preamble only in spirit to simplify a complex sentence?
We can read the Constitution as a written text and explore its meaning. Alternatively, you can discover the meaning of this text without participating in this analysis. The spirit of a text is a way of understanding something in the text beyond the meaning associated with the text’s language.
When we encounter a word, we naturally look up its meaning. However, these words are just words, and each word has its own meaning. Words such as “secular” in the preamble can be understood linguistically or in their spirit. What this means is that our understanding of this term is not limited to language, but to sensation, the feeling of knowing what it means. One way to understand the spirit of language is therefore to recognize the realm of emotions and experiences associated with language that are not reducible to the meanings of words or sentences. By spirit, we mean a sense of escape from the various constraints of meaning, seen from the perspective of language alone.
The word equality can be understood not only in terms of its meaning, but also in terms of how it is experienced. This word can evoke a sense of fairness, justice, and compassion for each of us and all those who are not as fortunate. To feel what a text is saying is to have an emotional relationship with it.
So how can we understand the spirit of the Constitution? First of all, the Constitution is a document that applies equally to everyone, meaning that the meaning of the words contained in the Constitution must apply equally to everyone. How do we understand this collective meaning? It is because each of us, under one constitution, tries to imagine this meaning from the perspective of others, all other peoples. Only when can you understand. The imagination of this collective vision is the spirit of this text.
A distinctive feature of the Indian Constitution is that this collective vision is driven by the perspective of the most disadvantaged sections of society. The spirit of the word justice is found when we think of justice not from our own perspective, but from the perspective of those in our society who are denied basic justice. The spirit of justice is not the technical meaning of the word justice, but the emotion felt when these qualities are imagined from the perspective of those who are denied them.
Therefore, those who claim to protect the spirit of the Constitution must first protect the collective vision of all citizens, irrespective of class, caste, religion or gender.
Sundar Sarukkai’s recent books include “The Social Life of a Democracy” and the novel “According to Prayer.”The views expressed are personal
