Religion should not be mixed with politics: Justice Nagamohan Das

Manjunath Hadimani | NT

Justice Nagamohan Das on Saturday emphasised the need to update the Indian Constitution and explained the real meaning of democracy while making it clear that religion should not be mixed with politics.

At a round-table conference held at Shikshakara Bhavan, the former Karnataka High Court judge said that after the Constitution came into force in 1950, people of India have achieved a lot of things. “We were not ruled by a political party before 1950. We got separate boundaries for our country, our own flag, emblem, and national anthem. Real India got its authenticity only after the Constitution came into force. We have made our own law, have legislature, executive and judiciary as three pillars. All this happened because of the Constitution. We, as a largest democracy in the world, have seen a Dalit President, a woman President, a woman Prime Minister, central ministers, ambassadors, Chief Ministers and many more,” Justice Nagamohan Das said.

Stressing on the importance of constitutional values, he said that every citizen of this country must know what our Constitution is, but our governments have failed to do this even after 73 years of Independence. “According to the Indian Constitution, democracy means and includes political democracy, economical democracy and social democracy. Most of us know only about political democracy and we think that the power to vote is the only means of democracy but we never knew about economical and social democracy,” he said.

Further explaining the meaning of secularism, the Justice said that it is the same misunderstanding with secularism too. “When I asked what secularism is? People everywhere said that equal treatment of all religions is secularism. This is not the exact meaning. The real meaning is separation of religion from politics. The rules, laws made by the state shall not be influenced by any religious descriptions such a type of system is called a secular system. Politics and religion should not be combined. Pressuring someone to go against their will is undemocratic whether it may be a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian. For example, a Hindu in Kerala is forced to wear a cap and few Muslim girls in Kashmir are forced to wear Hijab to school which is against their will, this is undemocratic,” he said.

Describing the role of cinema in bringing out Mythologies on screen he said that we have people making serials and cinemas on Ramayana and Mahabharata, but we still didn’t find anyone creating awareness about the Constitution to the people of India. “We people are revolving around the agendas created by our politicians,” he said. Focusing on the need to update the Constitution he said that there are imperfections in the Constitution and we must think of improving it. “Right to food must be a fundamental right and so is right to employment and right to health,” he said.