Dishonouring the solemn oath of office

 Worldwide in no other democracy the Constitution of the nation is violated with such impunity as it is done in India.  Time has come  to analyse how and why the political leadership of the country is able to trample upon the Constitution in such a disgraceful manner.

            Like every democratic country  the Indian Constitution enjoins that  the Prime Minister, including every  Minister of his cabinet and Ministers  of State of the Union will take an oath of office on appointment to his /her august office.  The oath prescribed in the Third Schedule of the Part I of our Constitution is mandatory and inviolable.

            Similarly every Chief Minister and Minister of a State government appointed to his /her office is required to take an oath of office which binds him or her to abide by the Constitution  and treat every Indian  as equal citizens while discharging his or her duties.

             Surprisingly neither any political analyst, nor any member of the secular commentariat cared to highlight that the solemn oath  prescribed in the Third Schedule of Part I of the Constitution was being  blatantly violated by the present Prime Minister of India and  quite a few Chief Ministers of  several States. Many brazen violations have  been done in the  holy name of secularism and   for exclusive growth of  5 most-favoured minorities.  On top of it,  the strategy is deceptively described as ‘inclusive growth’.  

Prime Minister Violates Oath of  Office

          The most notoriously famous violation of the oath of  office was done  by  the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, on December 9, 2006, while addressing the National Development Council, when he made a policy statement that  “Minorities, particularly Muslims,  will have the first claim” on the country’s resources.  It is indeed a tribute to the insensitivity  of the mainstream media that no one dared question the constitutional validity of  the Prime Minister’s  disgustingly communal policy statement.  No one, neither any columnist, nor media anchor of  the  27/4  television channels faulted the Prime Minister for his unprecedented willful  violation of the Oath of Office taken by him on assuming the office of the Prime Minister of India for a second term in 2009.   Among other things, the oath of  office prescribed in the Third Schedule, Part  I of the Constitution specifically enjoins that the  Prime Minister should discharge his duties towards all Indian nationals, “without fear or favour, affection or ill-will” and in accordance with the Constitution.    

For facility of ready reference, the oath taken by the Prime Minister  of India is reproduced belowverbatim :

       “I …………  ……… do swear in the name of God / solemnly affirm that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, that I will discharge my duties as Prime Minister for the Union and  I  will do right to all manner of people in accordance with the Constitution and the law, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.”  

          In sharp contrast to his oath of office the Prime Minister’s historic policy statement of December 9, 2006, clearly expressed an unmistakable “affection”  for the minorities, “especially the Muslims.”   This public announcement  was a gross violation of the oath of office taken by the Prime Minister.   Most importantly the violation was  a deliberate one.

          The second intent of the Prime Minister, inherent in the wonky pronouncement, was open expression of bias and ill-will towards the majority community, i.e., the Hindus who constituted 80 percent of the country’s population by denying to them an equitable share in the country’s resources.  It further indicated that the ruling political dispensation, headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh,  considered  all members of the majority community (read Hindus) to be reduced to the status of second class citizens of  India.

Briefly, the  implications of  the  policy statement of  Dr. Manmohan Singh  made on December 9, 2006,were as follows:
i)                It was  publicly made clear by the Prime Minister 7 years ago on December 9, 2006, that in future the Hindus would be entitled merely to the left-over crumbs   – after the Muslims and other minorities had partaken  of  the lion’s share of  the national resources, to their fill.

ii)              The pronouncement was also anopen public expression of  his “ill-will”  towards the majority community  -  specifically prohibited by the Indian Constitution as well as his oath of office.  

iii)             By degrading 80 percent Hindu population to the status of second class citizens, entitled only to left-over crumbs of national resources, the Prime Minister publicly destroyed  the  edifice of Right to Equality enshrined in the Constitution.

iv)            Furthermore, the  policy statement of “Muslims first”  strategy  was  a flagrant violation of the constitutional commitment to secularism enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution.

          Such indeed is the pusillanimity of the Hindu leadership and elitist  secularism-doped middle class that  no one had the guts to stand up in the meeting of  the National Development Council and advise the Prime Minister to withdraw his  communally divisive  policy  statement and point out that he was violating  the solemn oath of   the august office held by him.  The least  that was expected was that  the members of the BJP and other democratic parties should have walked out of the NDC meeting. Amazingly there were no protest march in any city or town, nor any  stinging criticism of the Prime Minister’s partisan and communal-coloured policy statement.   The lazy indifference of the majority community and their so-called self-anointed leaders explained how and why the foreign invaders had managed to rule over our motherland for nine hundred years.

          The marginalization of the majority community by the Indian state, publicly and stoutly announced by Dr. Manmohan Singh, was thus timidly accepted by leaders of the Hindu community virtually unchallenged. The result was that the central government and many votebank besotted chieftains of State governments like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal went into overdrive of showering millions of free scholarships and financial largesse comprising  several thousand crores rupees in the shape of  dirt-cheap educational and entrepreneurial loans on  the super-citizens belonging to five privileged minorities, namely the Muslims, the Christians, the Buddhists, the Parsis and the Sikhs constituting 20 percent of India’s population.   All this was done on the basis of Sachar Committee report  – an  untruthful  document  full of  suppressio veri, suggestion falsi.

          The only religious community excluded from nearly two million scholarships and financial concessions  amounting to several lakh crore  rupees was the politically-pariahed majority community, namely the poorest sections of  Hindus who remained ignorant of the discrimination practiced by the so-called secular political dispensation ruling India  -  albeit deviously and unconstitutionally.   Subsequently several schemes worth lakhs crore  Rupees were announced and implemented  by the Ministry of Minority Affairs, with due approval of the Prime Minister.

          The lead given by the Prime Minister through his ‘Muslims First’  policy was followed with vengeance by the votebank-besotted chieftains of several State governments like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, etc. They, too, like our Muslim-oriented Prime Minister showered multiple financial goodies on the five minority communities by trampling upon their oath of office. The Prime Minister and his sheep-follower Chief Ministers are aware that the Christians, the Buddhists, the Parsis  and the Sikhs have much higher literacy ratio than the Hindus. All  the five minorities are economically better placed than the Hindus !

          The monumental indifference  of our  ‘paid’,  ‘unpaid’  and ‘tamed’  journalists to such a ‘masterly divisive’ pronouncement  by the Prime Minister was a silent tribute to the pliability of Indian media. Astoundingly no editor,  no telemedia-anchor nor any column-writer cared to investigate why such a highly communal and  divisive statement had  to be made on Sonia Gandhi’s birthday  by our secularism-swearing  Prime Minister ?  According to Raisina hill grapevine thereby hangs a tale !

          Where do we go from here ?  No one knows -  sorry, no Hindu knows !
          Mera Bharat Mahan !