Ignorant lefties waving the Constitution are basically saying there was no India before 1950

The lefties are passing on to their comrades-in-arms the subliminal message that there was no civilisation, no society, no culture before 26 January 1950. But India and Indians created the Constitution, not the other way around.

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi shows a copy of the Constitution of India while taking oath as a Member of the 18th Lok Sabha during its second day, at the Parliament, in New Delhi | ANI Photo/SansadTV

In recent times, on TV, we can see many people waving pocket editions of the Indian Constitution. At first, I thought of this as a comical gesture. In fact, I was reminded of punters at Mahalakshmi Racecourse in Mumbai who wander around with little booklets providing details of horses, jockeys, owners, trainers, and handicaps for all the races of the day. These punters waving their booklets also look like entertaining clowns. So, what exactly are these Constitution-wavers (trust that is a valid hyphenated word in the language of our erstwhile rulers!) up to?

If they were just providing comic relief, we could let it pass as one more example of puerile leftism. This is especially the case when political parties in an alliance that includes the Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist are claiming to support constitutional democracy. They have not read Marx or Lenin, both of whom were critical of bourgeois democracy. When the Petrograd Soviet set out to destroy Russia’s only imaginative constitution in centuries, the hapless Kerensky was forced to find out that he was foolishly and pathetically trying to defend obsolete bourgeois ideas. To even remotely think that Chairmen who believe that power stems from the barrel of a gun would support a constitution is to live in a world of fantasy.

Why then are these ignorant and misguided lefties waving pocket constitutions in a farcical manner? What is their agenda? Remember Gramsci; remember the Frankfurt School; remember Pol Pot? Lefties always have an agenda. A friend of mine who likes to speak in an oblique, indirect manner said to me: “Think of 26 January 1950”. Given my limited intellect, it took me time to understand before hitting the Eureka moment. Of course, that is it!! The lefties are passing on to their comrades-in-arms the subliminal message that there was no India before 26 January 1950. No civilisation, no society, no culture, nothing. If there was something, it was worthless, hierarchical, misogynistic, homophobic, exploitative, oppressive, and so on. To them, the Constitution is much more than a good political document of great historical significance. The Constitution, in fact, establishes India which just did not exist before. Only the JNU historians knew it all along. Thinkers like Vivekananda, Aurobindo, and Bhandarkar were wrong. Historians like Radha Kumud Mukherji should be discounted. Poets like Bharati and Kuvempu can be discarded. Even foreign scholars like AL Basham and John Keay should be ignored.

Now one begins to understand not only why these folks wave pocket constitutions like a Vidhushaka in a traditional drama, but why they have negative views regarding the Sengol. If we concede that the Sengol is valuable, then we have to implicitly concede that our civilisation had a valuable presence before 1950, and that simply will not do. Of course, the eminent Pakistani historian IH Qureshi (an eminent alumnus of the eminent St Stephen’s College, which has produced many eminent lefties) has eminently argued that Pakistan was actually founded in the Indian subcontinent in 712 AD. But we can not-so-eminently park that argument for now.

Sengol, the forgotten ‘stick’ 

Samajwadi Party MP RK Chaudhary from Uttar Pradesh (which the inveterate Raj-lover in me believes should ideally be referred to as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh) has argued that the Sengol is a symbol of monarchy and therefore inappropriate in Parliament. Apparently, it properly belongs in a museum where it was ensconced and forgotten until recently. Let us digress a bit and understand this museum episode. In 1947, Mountbatten and Rajagopalachari discussed what would be an appropriate gesture to symbolise the transition of power. Rajaji talked to the Swami who headed the ancient Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam. The Swami commissioned a jeweller in Madras (now Chennai!) to fashion a Sengol. Mountbatten ceremonially handed over the Sengol to Jawaharlal Nehru.

Now just watch how the diabolical lefties operate. No socialist NCERT text was allowed to mention the Sengol. It was conveniently forgotten. The fact that Rajaji, the translator of the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Tirukkural, and the Bhaja Govindam, and the head of the Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam had come up with an imaginative gesture that stretched back to our autochthonous identity was suppressed by active and passive indifference. The biased lefty curator of the museum in Allahabad (now Prayagraj) catalogued it as a “stick”. There were Tamil writings on this “stick”. It is inconceivable that the curator could not have found any Tamilians in Allahabad (Prayagraj) in 1947 who could have helped him catalogue the “stick” in a better manner. He just did not bother to. He did not think it worthwhile. We need a modern Sherlock Holmes to investigate whether the curator was a closet Communist of the Marxist-Leninist variety. As a betting man, I am willing to put up a few rupees on that.

The forgotten “stick” is brought out of the museum of a dead past of what lefties tell us is a non-existent civilisation and is treated as a Sengol should be treated. And that act evokes criticism and disdain. The MP from UP who thinks the Sengol is a symbol of monarchy should talk to Kanimozhi who, to her credit, referred to the fact that Pandyan Sengols existed during the Sangam era when the Silappadikaram was written. Despite Kanimozhi’s sensible intervention, why is the DMK cold about the Sengol? Aha! Therein lies a tale. The DMK has opposed the “viral disease” known as Sanatana Dharma as an ideology of hierarchical Brahmin traditions. The fact is that the Adheenams are not Brahmin institutions. Their founders and their heads hail from multiple castes and communities. The DMK is loath to concede that the Adheenams have heroically preserved pristine traditions of the Sanatana Dharma, which today so many lefties of so-called Brahmin descent despise.

I am a great fan of the Adheenams. I need to narrate some anecdotes. Some years ago, a friend and I were visiting the Tiruveettanam temple, which is near Panruti in the South Arcot district of Tamil Nadu. This temple was originally controlled by an Adheenam and is now controlled by the Tamil Nadu government. Outside the temple, the Adheenam still maintains a small establishment. There were two Adheenam members on the outer pyol of the building. They told me that they had been to Kashi a dozen times. They had also been to Kedarnath and Pashupatinath. Clearly, Adheenams support and sustain a cultural rubric that spans all of India. This must profoundly irritate the DMK ideologues who emphasise multiple identities over an Indian one. If you visit the large establishment that the Dharmapuram Adheenam maintains in T Nagar in Chennai, you will be astonished to see how many Bhakti publications are available. You can find the Tirumurais; anthologies of the Thevaram Padigams; and works of Arunagirinathar, Tayumaanavar, and many others.

The DMK has pushed the narrative that there was so-called secular Sangam literature and then we skipped over centuries to land on modern atheist literature. Apart from the fact that it is unclear, except to foolish post-modernists, that there was anything remotely secular about Sangam literature, the entire range of Bhakti Pasurams and Padigams, which constitute the luminous glory of Tamil literature, gets ignored. But then despite official socialist textbooks ignoring Appar, Sundarar, Gnanasambandar, and Manikkavasagar, the Adheenam continues to publish and propagate their works in an intrepid manner. And readers of these books will get to know that Manikkavasagar, probably the greatest of our poets, were immigrants to the Pandya kingdom, once again attesting to an umbrella Indian civilisation that predated 1950. Again, lefties who are intent on asserting that India is not an organic union must be getting worked up.

Preserving the sacred

Fortunately for us, in Tamil Nadu there are still quite a few large, ancient temples that are not under government control, but which are managed by Adheenams. My personal experience is that many temples outside large cities and towns that are with the government do not have big crowds. The fabulous sculptures on the walls and pillars have acquired a museum-like quality about them. Many (certainly not all) Adheenam temples are crowded, vibrant, and buzzing with energy. They are not museums at all. They are living centres celebrating the sacred. I can think of at least three temples (two in the Chola territories and one in the Pandyan region) of considerable antiquity that are not in large towns. Vaitheeswaran Koil is one such temple, which is practically bursting with bhaktas every day. Recently I was there, and I had the privilege of watching one of the Swamijis of the Adheenam quietly make a round. He stopped at every shrine, and he gave the impression that he was in a state of mystic communion. He smiled at us, and we too felt touched by his sense of equipoise.

Tirupperunthurai in Avudaiyarkoil village is another such temple. Tamil schoolchildren should know that it was built by Manikkavasagar, but I have a feeling that atheist lefty ideology ensures that the children are kept ignorant. On a visit to this temple, which has brilliant sculptures, we were lucky to encounter a festive celebration. The nadaswaram artistes were excellent. I requested them to play raga Kharaharapriya. That is when I realised that this raga should be heard inside a large, energised temple, not in an air-conditioned concert hall. The nadaswaram players in government temples tend to be sedate and distracted. Perhaps the Adheenams just pay their artistes more and treat them better. The Amritaghateswarar temple, which is generally known as the Abirami temple, is another one. It buzzes with energy and the sense of the sacred is quite touching. Of course, some bigoted believers actually experience the presence of the great Goddess. But of course, they must be opium-addicted reactionaries.

That establishes another reason why the Sengol should be disliked. The Adheenams are tirelessly working to preserve our traditions that are suffused with the sacred. Anything that is sacred has to be an opiate. Has the Master not said so? And if it is a sacred spirit that is indigenous to the soil and stubble of India, then it must be bigoted and bad. And an Adheenam guru had the Sengol made in 1947. Therefore, the Sengol must be dismissed as a mere “stick”. One wonders if the Allahabad (Prayagraj) curator thought of it as a bigoted bourgeois “stick” or as something else.

Let me conclude this meandering essay on pocket constitutions, Adheenams, and the Sengol. Let me just state that India existed before 1950. In fact, India has existed for millennia before 1950. India and Indians created the Constitution, not the other way around. We must be grateful to Rajagopalachari, the Guru of the Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam, the Swamijis of all the Adheenams and, oddly enough, to Lord Mountbatten that our ancient sacred symbol (not a “stick”) has been bequeathed to us as a reminder of the persistent presence of our enduring culture. We must also congratulate the present dispensation for giving the Sengol prominence and providing an opportunity for our children to engage positively with our traditions and culture. One hopes that as they cram up on the Sengol, they learn a thing or two about India that is worthwhile.

Jaithirth Rao is an entrepreneur and an investor. Views are personal.

(Edited by Prashant)