• Inspired by Sabarimala case, the author dug into history of Europe and Constitution Making to write Christian Constitution in a Hindu Nation. Actually, Democracy (as understood today) & Constitution existed in Christian West. When India borrowed from their Constitution, we borrowed Christian concepts too.   

Do you know that the concept of Religious Denomination in the Indian Constitution was based on a Judeo-Christian concept? Read Pictures in Handcrafted Constitution of India , Is India's Colonial Constitution a result of the Drafting Committee being dominated by Lawyers , Role of Keralites in Drafting Consitution – Editor 

Book Preface excerpts  shared by author – copyright author

Breaking news” flashed the television set at my friend’s house. As we surfed channels, it was apparent that almost all of them were ready to break the very same news. From the synchronous behaviour of the media, it was obvious that the news to follow was very important. This went on for almost half an hour and the tension was indeed palpable. And pray why not? The All Women Festival in  Kerala

The news in question was the impending judgement of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the contentious Sabarimala case. It may be recalled that a group of women petitioners had approached the apex court to enforce their constitutional rights to enter the Sabarimala temple. For the uninitiated, from time immemorial, the temple would not allow fecund women from entering the hill where the temple is situated, much less the sanctum sanctorum. 

Naturally, this was a defining moment in the history of the modern liberal democratic republic of India. Put pithily, the question was: Do such women have a constitutional right to enter the temple notwithstanding the age-old custom? Or does the historical practice of prohibiting them from worshiping at the shrine override the constitution? Ultimately, the news was aired. By a 4:1 verdict, the

Hon’ble Supreme Court accepted the views of the women petitioners and saw merit in their argument. The constitution prevailed over age old traditions.

The “breaking news” broke me internally. Being an ardent devotee of the temple, I always rationalised that my visits to the temple were mandated by the divine. Strangers, acquaintances, family members or friends would somehow conjure ways and means of ensuring my visit to the shrine, at least once a year. 

As millions of devotees made their way on their pilgrimage to the temple, which is atop a hill in a forest with scarce infrastructure, one could not but admire the extraordinary belief of the devotees in disregarding the challenging terrain. If faith could move mountains, this was it. Equally, the restraint of fecund women devotees was admirable. Several of them simultaneously started a “ready to wait” movement which was demonstrative of their beliefs. To me, these age-old civilisational beliefs—of devotees of both sexes—were sacrosanct and inviolable. 

I believed India’s Independence and subsequently the Constitution guaranteed all this. Despite being a student of law and a keen observer of Indian politics, I realised at that moment that it was naivete on my part to have assumed so. Naturally, I was incensed with the judiciary for disregarding the individual and collective beliefs of these devotees. As I read the judgement in full, I realised the intensity of the Constitutional carnage on this civilisation in the name of law, morality and Constitution. 

Subsequently, as I analysed the judgement with a calmer mind, my initial anger at the judiciary turned against the Constitution, which I believe compelled the judges to act as they did. As I read the relevant parts of the Constitution, my anger at the Constitution instantly evaporated and shifted toward the founding fathers of the Constitution. I held the framers of our Constitution as the villain of the piece. Finally, as I read the Constitutional Assembly debates, I realised that the fault lay elsewhere. I decided that this required a serious exposition on the subject. It was here that the idea of this work germinated.

Doctrine of Discovery

But why “christen” this work as “Discovery”? Like many ideas that dominate our thinking, “discovery” is a religious concept that is alien to this ancient land. The origin of this doctrine can be traced to Christendom, wherein it has been used for centuries to justify Christian colonial conquests, more particularly since the medieval times. The doctrine advanced the fundamental idea that European  Discovery’ and Bharat people, their culture, and their religion were superior to all others. One of the earliest usages of this doctrine in a legal document can be traced to a treaty between Spain and Portugal in 1494. 

The Treaty of Tordesillas, named after the city in Spain where it was created, originally divided the “New World” of the Americas between these two powers. Is that why Columbus embarked on a “discovery” of America? 

Based on this treaty, Spain and Portugal neatly divided the “New World” by drawing an imaginary north–south line in the Atlantic Ocean, about 550 kilometres west of Cape Verde Islands. All lands east of that line were claimed by Portugal. All lands to the west of that line were claimed by Spain. 

Both Portugal and Spain adhered to the treaty without a major conflict between them, although the line of demarcation was moved an additional 1500 kilometres farther west in 1506, which enabled Portugal to claim the eastern coast of what is now Brazil. The results of this treaty are still evident throughout the Americas today.

For example, all Latin American nations are predominantly Spanish-speaking countries with the sole exception of Brazil, where Portuguese is the national language. This is because the eastern tip of Brazil falls east of the line of demarcation settled upon in the Treaty of Tordesillas and was where the majority of Portuguese colonisation occurred.

Significantly, the Treaty of Tordesillas completely ignored the millions of people already living in established communities in the Americas. The treaty stipulated that any lands with a “Christian king” would not be colonised. Of course, by that time, Christianity had not spread in the Americas. This meant that, unless the land was already claimed by a Christian (European) ruler, by the terms of their treaty,

Spain and Portugal—and only one of the two—could claim practically any land they managed to conquer in the Americas. The resulting conquest and colonisation proved disastrous for indigenous civilisations, such as the Inca, Taino and Aztec, along with thousands of other communities throughout the Americas. Importantly, the “Doctrine of Discovery” had the blessings of successive popes.

These declarations (known as “papal bulls”) provided religious authority for Christian empires to invade and subjugate non‐Christian lands, peoples and sovereign nations, impose Christianity on unsuspecting populations, and claim their resources. These papal bulls were written at a time when European empires were embarking on wide-scale colonial expansion. Many scholarly works on this subject point out that the Christian Europeans saw the world as divided between “Christendom” and “heathendom.” In this context, it may be noted that the Grant by the pope to the Crown of Spain reads:

For the purposes of overthrowing heathenism, and advancing the Roman Catholic religion, Alexander VI issued a bull in 1493, granting to the whole of Castile the whole of the vast domain discovered, or to be discovered, between the north and south poles, or so much thereof as was not considered in the possession of any Christian power.

Thus, the “Doctrine of Discovery” is more accurately expressed as “the first discovery by Christian people of non‐Christian lands, and the subsequent assertion of Christian sovereignty or territorial dominion.”

Was India one of the several victims of this doctrine? The “discovery” of Bharat that is India began when the Europeans, more precisely Vasco Da Gama, landed here in late fifteenth century. Since then, India was “discovered” several times over by the Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, French, and finally by the British. And their “discovery” of India arose through a supremacist belief, legitimised by the order of successive popes and sanctified through Christian theology. 

Thus, to reduce colonialism to a mere accident of errant players of a bygone era would be doing great violence to ourselves. Colonialism is deep rooted and is an integral part of Christendom. The moot question is whether it continues to play out in full public glare even to this day and age. Is our Constitution a product of the “Doctrine of Discovery”? Are Christian morality and European values and Bharat the basis for the drafting, understanding and interpreting of our Constitution? 

Moreover, the interplay of Christian values and ideas that germinated in ancient Rome continues to fashion the functioning of modern States within Christendom. We call this as “Project Romanisation.” Notwithstanding the fact that it owes its origin to another civilisation, this template of Christendom made its way to the making and substantially influenced the drafting of our Constitution. 

I believe that the verdict in the Sabarimala matter confirmed this fact. Naturally, the case and its judgement left me in deep contemplation. In the course of my previous work Retaining Balance, I had the opportunity to delve into the Constituent Assembly debates. This was for a limited reference about “Socialism” and how it was dealt in by the sagacious men in the said Assembly. Nevertheless, that brief engagement left me fascinated with the debates themselves. 

Simultaneously, my good friend Ratan Sharda, going through the draft of Retaining Balance, commented that it was a good effort but nevertheless a work in progress with no clear determinative ending. More particularly, he did point out that Retaining Balance was more diagnostic than prescriptive. I bowed down to that comment with a modicum of humility which, I admit, I brought on myself with great difficulty!

Nevertheless, I saw it as a divine order to continue my work as a writer. Naturally, the verdict in the Sabarimala case, my brief engagement with the Constitutional Assembly debates in course of authoring Retaining Balance and, of course, Ratan Sharda’s comment combined into a potent concoction that led to my decision to pen Discovery.

Inspired by Christendom

My fleeting tryst with the Constituent Assembly debates reinforced the charge that the Indian Constitution was heavily inspired by the Government of India Act, 1935, as well as the Constitutions of Western nations. This has often been repeated by well-meaning persons. In our angst to draw the best from the outside world, we borrowed the idea of “We the People” from the American Constitution and the idea of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity from the French. We borrowed the parliamentary system and, with it, the bicameral system from the British and the idea of centralised planning from the Russians.

Thus, when it came to establishing parliamentary institutions and systems, we veered towards the British; on individual liberty, towards the Americans; and when it came to economics, we are substantially French and Russian. To an impartial observer, it would be apparent that all the building blocks in our Constitution came from the Western world—mostly Christian nations.

But what is unstated (probably for the fear of being labelled “politically incorrect”) is the fact that one can trace the umbilical cord of our constitution directly to Christendom. As a case in point, the Constitution, mirroring Christendom, is heavily centralised. That tilts the balance in favour of the executive and against the very people that it is intended to serve. In the process, it makes India more of a republic than a democracy. Illustratively, this is one of the complex issues that I deal with in this work—the issue of centralisation of power in the hands of the executive and its concomitant fallout of restricting democracy. 

That brings us to the core issue of this work—the imperial majesty of the state needs to be constantly reconciled, adjusted and redrawn to accommodate the liberty of the citizens. Too much of democracy may potentially lead to anarchy; too much of reliance on the executive may lead to stymying democracy itself. This delicate balancing comes with an esoteric phrase—right-sizing the state. And this is a constantly evolving idea. 

Gandhi and several of his colleagues in the freedom movement probably realised that centralisation mirrors core Christian beliefs. To them, centralisation primed the state and disadvantaged the citizens. In contrast, Gandhi believed de-centralisation reflects the polity of this ancient civilisation which has thrived on plural thoughts, reconciliation of diverse ideas and harmonious functioning of contrarian viewpoints.

Except nihilism, everything was acceptable, debatable and workable within our civilisational fold. This was democracy at its very best. Thus, the unwritten but firm belief during the Independence movement was that a decentralised polity (with a functional grassroots democracy) lay at the core of the political construct post-Independence.

However, post-Independence, several of Gandhi’s colleagues, who accepted most of his political philosophies, were, strangely, reluctant to accept his idea of a de-centralised political construct. While the blame or the credit—(depends on which side of the political divide you are)—for this is laid entirely at the doorstep of Nehru, the fact remains that there was a near consensus on the constitutional construct amongst the then political leadership. And this included Ambedkar, Sardar Patel, Rajaji, Rajendra Prasad, Maulana Azad and several other stalwarts. 

Of course, they had political differences amongst themselves, but they did not let that overwhelm the consensus needed for the drafting of the Constitution. Nevertheless, in the process of manufacturing consensus, our political leaders gave us a constitution that was a delightful patchwork of constitutions of several countries, more particularly, Western ones—specifically from Christendom.

To read all articles by author

Also read

1. To buy online Christian Constitution in a Hindu Nation

2. How democracy evolved in India

3. Colonial Constitution by Dr A Sengupta

4. Sri Aurobindo on Gandhi

5. Why Secularism is a Western Concept