Hamid Ansari’s last hurrah

Just three days before he demits office Vice-President Hamid Ansari has done the nation a remarkable service by reminding us of a few basic commitments that were made when we organsied ourselves as a constitutional democracy, with the avowed objective of creating  a just society.  For this thoughtful reminder, he could not have chosen a better audience: the graduating class of the National Law School of India at Bengaluru. But the real audience was beyond the budding legal eagles. The Vice-President chose to remind us of ‘pluralism’ and ‘secularism’ as basic tenets in our social compact; both these basic values have come under severe contestation in recent days but, as Ansari pointed out,  neither of the two depend  on the political vagaries of the day nor on the political ascendency of this or that party.  To make the point, Ansari recalled Swari Vivekananda's formulation: “We must not only tolerate other religions, but positively embrace them,  as truth is the basis of all religions.”     

However, the Vice-President has done the nation a much greater service by inviting us all to think about what kind of ‘nationalism’ we wish to prescribe — or, proscribe — for ourselves. The ruling establishment has got the entire nation enamoured of a muscular nationalism; it has bred intolerance and arrogance in our public life and discourse. Various insecurities and insularities have been worked into our collective angst to produce a brittle and edgy nationalism. Injection of ‘culture’ or ‘religion’ in any construct of nationalism makes it a narrow and sectarian concern. We in India need to watch out against the global trend towards hyper-nationalism and the closing of the mind.

Hamid Ansari has, also, done well to tell the judiciary of its responsibility in protecting the Constitution and rule of law. This role is at the very core of our survival as a constitutional democracy. These reflections at Bengaluru may be somewhat unpalatable to the ruling elites strutting on the national stage; but words and actions in defence of the Constitution are never out of place. The nation owes a sense of gratitude to Hamid Ansari for this last hurrah.