Their defence has a dual purpose. To allay apprehensions about the proposed review, and to push through what is the most ambitious agenda of the RSS combine for the Vajpayee government. To accomplish the first task -- to lull liberal and uncommitted opinion -- the BJP leaders are adopting a stance of injured innocence. They dissemble and protest that what they want from a review is just some liberal reforms. Venkaiah Naidu says that review is required for decentralising powers upto the panchayat level; Murli Manohar Joshi says that the preamble of the Constitution has to be put into force; others claim that the review is required for Centre-State relations and electoral reforms.

No one mentions a key change that the BJP wants, which is a Presidential form of government. Even Advani, who boldly stated as the Union Home Minister in 1998, that the Presidential form should be considered and it is not a change in the basic structure of the Constitution, is more circumspect this time. He has defended the decision for a review of the Constitution as a promise made by the NDA, and the government is only fulfilling the mandate given in the elections.

COMMISSION ANNOUNCED

The BJP’s determination to go ahead with the review is evident from the Cabinet decision of February 1, announcing the setting up of an eleven-member Commission. Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Venkatachaliah, it is reported, has been asked to head the Commission.

Faced with widespread opposition to the review, the government has retreated on a key issue: the Parliamentary system will not be subject to review. This has been specifically mentioned in the resolution adopted by the Cabinet. However, the other purposes for restricting the role and scope of Parliament in the name of stability will be taken up, as also the covert move to rewrite the secular premises of the Constitution.

While the BJP leadership expectedly takes recourse to doublespeak to defend the review of the Constitution through a Commission, what is disturbing is the support given to this move by its liberal camp followers. Soli Sorabjee, the Attorney General of India, who is by no means a Hindutva advocate, sees no harm in a Constitutional review. Ram Jethmalani, another non-BJP member of the Cabinet wants us to believe that a review is necessary for constituting a National Judicial Commission for the appointment of judges, and to end the arbitrary use of Article 356.

These gentlemen who are today part of the BJP-led set-up have no qualms about going along with the covert effort to subvert the Constitution. Sorabjee and Jethmalani have only to read the Organiser to understand exactly what the RSS plans are for the Constitution. The latest issue of the Organiser (February 6) has once again decried the secular ethos of the Republican Constitution.

BJP DOUBLE-SPEAK

The BJP has been harping on the need for a review of the Constitution for the last one decade. After the formation of the National Democratic Alliance in 1998 this proposal, originally mooted by the BJP, was included in the National Agenda for Governance. However, it is clear that it is the BJP which is the prime mover of this proposal. The reasons why the BJP wishes to have a review of the Constitution is being deliberately obscured by it at present because of the political compulsions of its alliance.

The BJP is deliberately speaking in different voices about the intent of the Constitutional review. While some talk of the need for change in Centre-State relations and electoral reforms, the declared stand of the BJP in its official documents has been somewhat different. The BJP had spelt out clearly what it intends to do with the Constitution in its 1991 election manifesto. It had talked of

"a commission to study and report whether the presidential system of government will give us the most suitable government than the present parliamentary system".

The second demand in the manifesto concerns the modification of Article 30 which guarantees the rights of minorities to run their own educational institutions. The BJP wishes to amend the Article in such a manner as to put an end to the Constitutional protection given to the minorities. The third change proposed is the abrogation of Article 370 regarding Jammu and Kashmir.

Significantly, in the 1996 and 1998 election manifestos of the BJP, the latter two demands are not repeated. Instead the proposal for a comprehensive review of the Constitution is made. This is because by 1996, the BJP had realised the need to muster allies who may not agree with these demands. It therefore decided to take up these issues in an oblique manner through the mechanism of a Constitutional review.

THRUST FOR DECENTRALISATION

Notwithstanding what the BJP says today about not taking up "contentious issues", the BJP is a party which has openly declared its allegiance to Hindutva. In the last election manifesto issued by the BJP as a party in 1998, in which it promised to undertake a review of the Constitution, the BJP also echoed the slogan of the RSS of "one nation, one people, one culture". It talked of Hindutva as the core of cultural nationalism which should be the principle of the Indian State.

Thus the central thrust of the BJP-RSS combine for review of the Constitution is the desecularisation of the Indian State and society. It sees the Constitution as a roadblock to installing Hindutva as the guiding principle of the State.

At the present juncture, the infiltration of the Hindutva ideology into the Constitutional scheme of affairs cannot be accomplished directly by the BJP as it does not have a majority, and it is compelled to run a coalition. It is therefore striving to indirectly bring it on to the agenda of the government. That is why Article 370 on Kashmir and Articles 29 and 30 concerning minorities are to be subject to review.

Talk of having a Presidential form of government must be seen in this background. The Presidential form, with the concentration of powers in one leader, will be more suitable for entrenching the Hindutva ideology in the institutions of the State. In a Presidential system, the President can induct the key personnel to run the State apparatus who are not directly accountable to parliament. The parliamentary system which has taken root in India is more accommodative of and responsive to the diversity of Indian society. Both the secular basis and the federal character of the political system is best served by the parliamentary system. That is why the BJP-RSS combine has been aiming for the Presidential system.

DEMAND FOR " STABILITY "

The Prime Minister and the BJP leadership have cited another reason for reviewing the Constitution, which is to ensure stability (of government). The proposals which the BJP has made in this connection are dangerous. The proposals for fixity of the five-year term for the Lok Sabha, disallowing a no-confidence motion without an alternative government proposal, and the increased push for a two-party system are all designed to restrict and truncate parliamentary democracy.

It is noteworthy that such demands for stability and the introduction of constitutional safeguards against political change, have arisen during the last decade after liberalisation. It is not only the BJP which voices such demands but many leaders of the Congress including prominent personalities such as former President Venkataraman and the former speaker Shivraj Patil. This is one of the responses of the ruling classes to the spectre of instability caused by their policies.

The law minister Mr. Jethmalani has gone on record that the Supreme Court's notions of "misguided secularism" as the basis for the use of Article 356 needs to be reviewed. This ominous remark is directed at the Supreme Court judgment on the Bommai case which upheld the dismissal of the BJP-led state governments in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. The judgment had declared secularism as a basic feature of the Constitution, and declared that if any state government promotes anti-secular activities, it is behaving in an unconstitutional manner.

Previously when the 13-month Vajpayee government was in office, the Union Home Minister, Mr. Advani, had spelt out some of the ostensible concerns regarding the Constitutional review. He talked of reviewing Centre-State relations with a view to providing the states more powers, electoral reforms to strengthen the democratic system, and the question of the Presidential form of government being preferable to the parliamentary system. In the case of both Centre-State relations and electoral reforms, there is a widespread consensus for the need for change, and this does not require the type of omnibus constitutional review which the Vajpayee government wants to undertake. For suitably amending Article 356 or other relevant articles on Centre-State relations, the Inter-State Council is the proper forum to arrive at a consensus on the changes to be made. In the case of electoral reforms, the government has only to initiate legislation. None of these require a basic review of the Constitution. So what we are left with is the Presidential form of government.

Those who cite the Supreme Court judgement in the Keshavanand Bharati case to assure that no change in the basic structure can take place, overlook the fact that a key reason for the review is the push for a Presidential form of government. The changeover to a Presidential form would mean a drastic change in the political system of governance set out in the Constitution.

The procedure proposed for the Constitution review is equally objectionable. A small body of experts selected by the Vajpayee government will constitute the Commission to undertake the task of basic review of the Constitution. Some of the names being mentioned for the Commission are those who have already spoken in favour of the presidential form of government or are votaries of curtailing the role of parliament and the party system.

It is parliament, elected by the Indian people which is empowered to amend the Constitution as per the procedure laid out in Article 368. Only parliament can mandate the scope and terms of a Constitutional review.