Are inequality and hostility easier to learn than equality and understanding? Somewhere along the way from the time the Constitution was adopted, its foundational principles began to fade from memory, so much so that many Indians, including some of the educated young, have little or no sense of them. A brief, informal survey of young voters from Madhya Pradesh revealed a weak grasp of the importance of secularism and equality, of the nature of India’s struggle for independence and its achievements after that. The survey hints at a much wider and more layered problem than the ignorance or credulity of a few technologically ac­complished young people. And it would not be entirely correct or fair to blame the skewed narratives of the Bha­ra­tiya Janata Party-led go­vernments in the states and at the Centre, the Narendra Modi-led government’s assaults on constitutional principles or even its identification of religious majoritarianism with nationalism for such amnesia. Rather, it is the waning of the Constitution’s importance in the everyday life of Indian citizens — no government can be free of blame on this score — that has made today’s combination of amnesia and misdirected belief so easy to create.

The Karnataka government has introduced a system of reading the Preamble to the Constitution at school assembly every day, in order to instil in children the ideals of secularism, equality, fraternity and freedom so that democracy may be saved from the attack of undemocratic forces. The chief minister of Karnataka sees education as the only way to preserve and protect the Constitution. Studying and understanding the Constitution and its principles is part of this concept of education; it may be the distance of such knowledge from a large section of the Indian population in theory and experience that has caused constitutional values to weaken in the general consciousness. If the constitutional principles did not reach the people they honour, the blame lies with education experts and political leaders. The Constitution did not become an ineradicable part of culture, so it ultimately affected the educated too, as the survey suggested. Where privilege is unequal, damage is alarmingly equal.

In 2019, the Delhi government, too, had arranged for schools to conduct a series of classes on constitutional themes for a fixed number of months. That comprised the first phase of the ‘deshbhakti curriculum’ which, instead of jingoistic, religion-based nationalism, was designed to induce pride in the country through an understanding of secularism, equality and compassion, among other principles. The ideology thus born would aspire to the highest human values as the Constitution envisaged, not to any caste- or faith-inspired sense of difference and hostility. Yet, being aware of the Constitution anew would not be a cure-all for the divisiveness and violence that has overtaken much of India, often obscured behind tales of invincibility, prosperity and prestige. But it would be a positive first step towards discerning wrongs and correcting them.