Page 26 - MANN KI BAAT (English)
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to be treated as separate items cultural heritage and is uniquely
in a trinity. They form a union tailored to the Indian context,
of trinity in the sense that to with provisions that considered
divorce one from the other is the country’s historical, cultural,
to defeat the very purpose of and social realities.
democracy. Liberty cannot be Dr Ambedkar specifically
divorced from equality, equality mentioned India’s democratic
cannot be divorced from liberty. heritage in the Constituent
Nor can liberty and equality Assembly when he referred to
be divorced from fraternity. democratic and parliamentary
“Without fraternity, equality and practices prevailing in the
liberty will be no deeper than Hindu kingdoms and Buddhist
coats of paint”. Sanghas over 2500 years ago.
Further, he had warned “It is not that India did not
mere political equality would not know what is Democracy. There
do. We would need was a time when
to strive for equality India was studded
in the social and with republics, and
economic planes as even where there
well. were monarchies,
The text of some they were either
provisions in the elected or limited.
Indian Constitution is They were never
drawn from various international absolute. It is not that India
sources incorporating elements did not know Parliaments or
from the British, American, Parliamentary Procedure. A
Irish, and Canadian systems of study of the Buddhist Bhikshu
governance. But the marma or Sanghas discloses that not
the core values and essence only there were Parliaments-for
is derived from Bharat’s the Sanghas were nothing but
civilisational experience. For Parliaments – but the Sanghas
example, this land and its knew and observed all the rules
people have lived in harmony of Parliamentary Procedure
amidst diversity and plurality known to modern times. They
of thought from the days of had rules regarding seating
the Rig Veda which said: “Ekam arrangements, rules regarding
Sat, Vipra Bahudha Vadanti”, Motions, Resolutions, Quorum,
meaning the truth is one, but Whip, Counting of Votes, Voting
the wise perceive it differently. by Ballot, Censure Motion,
In other words, the Constitution Regularization, Res Judicata,
speaks the language of India’s etc. Although these rules of
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