Dear Hon’ble Lok Sabha “Speaker-ji”,
While the Indian Constitution is to be respected by all citizens of India, it serves no purpose in likening it to an Ethico-Religious text like the Bhagavath-Gita.
The Bhagavath-Gita is a scriptural text on Hindu Dharma which explicitly espouses age-old social order, structure and laws of Rishi Manu and “Varnaashrama”.
The Indian Constitution, on the other hand, is a political “New Testament” of India on the canons of governance of a Republic State that prides itself on modern and Western liberal values of Liberté, égalité, fraternité. In the entire text of the Indian Constitution, you won’t find the word Dharma ever mentioned. So how on earth are you able to find any reason to see resemblance between Manu’s Gita and Ambedkar’s Constitution?!
By trying to draw some kind of equivalence between the Gita and the Constitution, far from honouring both texts you only end up making a travesty of them. You also needlessly politicise the Bhagavath Gita. It is quite likely that other religious groups in the country will now object to your leaving out in your comparison the Bible, the Koran or the Guru Granth. And in Tamil Nadu state where I live, the champions of Dravidianism will now start screaming that your statement likening the Constitution to the Gita is yet another unmistakable sign of the great conspiracy of the Brahmins of India to revive and impose Brahmanism on the entire country. There are anti-Manu-vaadis in other states like Kerala and Bengal too who will go around now raving and ranting that the Lok Sabha Speaker is a mouthpiece of the RSS Parivaar.
Hon’ble Speaker-ji, your speech writers have badly slipped up on this occasion and handed you a prepared speech to deliver to the nation on a solemn national day — a speech which is as ill advised as it is wholly and politically unnecessary.
With best wishes to you from a citizen of India who abides by the Constitution of India but worships the Bhagavath Gita … and knows the political difference that prevails between abiding and worshipping.
Sudarshan Madabushi