Ah, how easy it is nowadays to be guilty of “disrespecting the Constitution!” All you need to do is ask a question, and boom—you’re branded as a criminal, a rebel, or worse, an anti-national.
Today it’s Rahul Gandhi. Tomorrow, it could be you.
And who are the judges of such weighty accusations?
None other than the very men and women drawing fat salaries from our pockets—those same elected representatives who confuse the Constitution with their party manifesto, and the people with their vote banks.
I watched, amused and alarmed, as the Election Commission thundered back at Rahul Gandhi’s charge of fraud, saying he had shown “disrespect to the Constitution.” Disrespect? My dear sirs, what dictionary are you consulting? Because the last time I checked, questioning authority is the very soul of democracy, not its downfall.
If asking, “Are you doing your job right?” becomes sedition, then the Constitution has already been quietly buried, and we are merely attending its funeral in silence.
This is not new. We have grown used to phrases like “anti-national” being hurled at students, journalists, and opposition leaders. Or “sedition” being slapped on those who refuse to clap loudly enough at government functions. Or “disrespect to the army” when the poor fighter pilot is sent to fight a battle he wasn’t equipped for, and someone dares to ask why.
These phrases are not arguments; they are smokescreens. They are meant to make you forget the question and glare instead at the questioner.
And, sadly, they work—especially on the uneducated, the easily misled, and sometimes even the educated, who prefer a WhatsApp forward to a history book. If you, dear reader, find yourself fooled by such dramatic declarations, then pause a moment. Hold up a mirror. Ask yourself if you’ve lost the ability to discern right from wrong. For when we cannot tell truth from propaganda, we are not victims alone—we are accomplices.
Let us be clear: this is not disrespect to the Constitution. This is disrespect to the people of India. To you, to me, to every taxpayer who pays the salaries of these solemn-faced leaders and commissioners. They draw their monthly pay from our sweat and toil, and in return, they fling words at us their paymasters, like schoolyard bullies.
It’s high time this game stopped. Not with more words, but with action. If an elected representative misuses language to mislead, let us haul him to court. If an institution hides behind grand phrases instead of answers, let us remind them who gave them their chair. And if they still persist, then let the people themselves pass the verdict—not in Parliament, but at the ballot box.
Because, dear sirs, it is not us disrespecting the Constitution. It is you. And unless you stop, you may find yourselves impeached—not by lawyers in courts, but by millions of ordinary Indians who have finally opened their eyes.
Now that would be true respect for the Constitution…!
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