It is a wise saw that a bad workman blames his tools and a poor dancer the shape of the stage for their dismal performances. A striking parallel in the political sphere is the growing trend of parties in power to blame the Constitution for their own poor record of service to the people. Armed with all the vast powers vested in them by the Government and the enormous resources of the nation at their beck and call, these men and women at the helm dissipate both through either personal aggrandisement or pointless policy exercises during most of their tenure. And when the day of reckoning draws near, they raise a hue and cry that but for the fundamental rights or some other provision in the Constitution they would have ushered in a just social order to ensure the welfare of the people and equality of opportunity for all. To lend some credence to such a politically profitable stand, they assiduously bring about confrontations with the judiciary, so that it can be made out that the verdicts of the judiciary striking down some ill-conceived (and often undesirable) pieces of legislation or executive acts and the provisions of the Constitution on which the verdicts are based are the causes for their own dismal inadequacy. The people are by now familiar with the plans of some parties for amending the Constitution in the name of social justice and their cries for a “committed judiciary” as also of the dangerous consequences of such attempts to undermine these bedrocks of individual liberty and the democratic freedoms.
