Necessary to invoke Constitution-as-commons to resist and counter the politics of maiming: Kalpana Kannabiran

Kalpana Kannabiran discusses the importance of the Constitution as a commons and human dignity in India's social deprivation.

Kalpana Kannabiran, Distinguished Professor, Council for Social Development, New Delhi, on Monday said her ongoing work focused on building a bridge between the intellectual history of Indian constitutionalism, histories of insurgent interpretation of the Constitution and the ideas of the scholars of the commons.

“In proposing the conceptualisation of the Constitution as a commons, I look at belonging and ownership, foregrounding collective action and civic engagement as providing the tools for constitutional interpretation,” she said, delivering the 11th ‘T. G. Narayanan Memorial Lecture on Social Deprivation’ under the auspices of the Media Development Foundation and the Asian College of Journalism.

The lecture was on the topic -- Human dignity in the time of Article 21: The long satyagraha for the Constitution-as-commons in India. “Why is it necessary for us to focus on convivialities in India today? Why do we need to think of recuperation by invoking the Constitution-as-commons? The simple answer is to resist and counter the politics of maiming,” Ms. Kannabiran said.

“The deathly coils of the politics of maiming in India articulate caste, community, conscience, ethnicity and gender as reified un-historical identities, disregardful of their dense intersections, heterogeneity and plural articulations across history,” she said. The experience of Manipur over the past year and a half -- continuing exacerbated and unresolved in the present -- is a daily reminder of the profound harm inflicted by the politics of maiming, Ms. Kannabiran said.

She stressed the aspect of how one could think of dignity as a moral and constitutional value. “My attempt is a call to memory and a critique that illuminates paths not taken, recovering ground from the shards that affirm freedom, fraternity and dignity, in a time of deep crisis. The purpose is to develop a cogent assemblage of citizenship that builds on histories of anti-colonial/anti-majoritarian struggles, assertions of the unassailability of human dignity than persist despite the rolling juggernaut of burgeoning exception,” Ms. Kannabiran said.

“In the effort to revisit our troubled pasts, we assemble insights of a moral firmament that speak to the spirit of the Constitution, reject its aberrations (using arguments of severability and non-retrogression) and provide a dignity compass for just and compassionate governance, state formation and citizen engagement,” she added.