by A Detenu (December, 1975)

When in the early hours of August 15, 1975 some soldiers of the Bangladesh Army sneaked into the Dacca residence of President Mujib and massacred him and his family in cold blood, they were avowedly carrying out the orders of their immediate superior, Major Dalim.

The Major’s orders were patently illegal. If any soldier had refused to obey them, he would have been performing not only a patriotic duty, but would have been fulfilling a constitutional and legal obligation as well. He may have had to forfeit his life at the Major’s hands on that account. He may have been martyred along with Mujib, but no one could have found fault with him for defying his superior officer. Even Indira Gandhi would have lauded his martyrdom.

by A Detenu (February, 1976)

At its Chandigarh conference, the ruling Congress has called for a second look at the Constitution.

None of the opposition parties has any quarrel with this proposal. In fact, if one were to go through the election manifestoes of various political parties in the 1971 poll, one would find that it is some of the opposition parties which have committed themselves to constitutional reform, and not the ruling party. The Socialist party, for instance, favoured the convening of a new constituent assembly, while the Jana Sangh advocated setting up a commission on the Constitution.

It is our charge that the ruling Congress has never been earnestly interested in constitutional reform. When its spokesmen speak of constitutional change, they do so for two ulterior purposes - one negative and the other positive.

The negative purpose is to project the Constitution as a scapegoat for the Government’s own failure on the economic front. Their positive interest in raising this issue is to create a propaganda smokescreen behind which democracy can be destroyed, and an authoritarian polity set up in its place.

by A Detenu (April, 1976)

Indira Gandhi never tires of branding her opponents as ‘fascists’. Apparently she thinks that by sheer repetition, people will come to believe her. But ‘fascism’ has a precise meaning and connotation. Besides, there is historical experience of how ‘fascists’ behave and what the purpose of ‘fascism’ is. This should serve to show who are ‘fascists’, Indira Gandhi or her opponents.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the USA once identified ‘the essence of fascism’ as ‘ownership of Government by an individual’. The liberty of a democracy, he clarified, is not safe if people tolerate the growth of personal power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself.

Roosevelt, of course, was a sworn enemy of fascism. But even the protagonists of fascism never denied the basically anti-democratic character of their creed.

by A Detenu (September 1976)

Unlike earlier Constitution Amendment Bills, the Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Bill 1976, is not just one single amendment. It comprises some 57 different amendments, all lumped together in an omnibus Bill. In a way, thus with the enactment of this Bill, the Indian Constitution would have undergone one hundred modifications in all. One hundred modifications in twenty-six and half years, and two-thirds of these, the contribution of the fifteen-month-old Emergency!

The contents of this Bill apart, there are three preliminary, but weighty, objections why the present Parliament should not even consider this Bill.

The present Lok Sabha was elected in March, 1971. On march 17, 1976, its mandate expired. Ordinarily, therefore, under Art. 83 of the Constitution, the Lok Sabha would have become automatically dissolved on that date. If it continues to survive, it is solely because of the Emergency proclamation, which has made it possible for the majority party in the House to give the Lok Sabha an extended tenure.