The days of apartheid in South Africa and the centuries-old slavery in America are enough for quick comparison and strong contrast. In societies where different buses would run for the white people and another one for the black, one could not even think of such emancipation of the people belonging to the so-called lower castes. And what used to happen there at that time, was as per their constitution. They were not doing anything illegal, rather, were well within the ambit of the law. When we analyze those times and have a glimpse of our constitution, one finds that the makers of the constitution were the people with a vision; they made sure that everyone is emancipated, be it, anyone, from anywhere—what the constitution of India guaranteed was equality and that has remained its foundational block ever since it was put together.
The nature of India as a country is such that it does not present a homogeneous picture at all, rather there are different levels, spheres, and dimensions, where the people live and if we see keenly, the society, in its raw form, is not familiar with the element of equality, because it is structured in a way that only inequality makes it visible. In the end, there had to be something that would ingrain the sense of equality back in the society and that’s where the constitution chips in.
It is this book of the constitution that stands for treating everyone equally, providing equal opportunities to every individual living in the country, and thus infusing the ‘unfamiliar’ element of ‘equality’ back into society. The nomination of Draupadi Murmu should be seen as yet another attempt of the makers of the constitution, invisibly, ingraining, and strengthening the element of equality, and a sense of emancipation in the Indian society. Somewhere, they would be looking at this country up from the skies; thinking of how they wanted this country to be run; then, they would remind themselves of the constitution they left behind: which can do wonders if followed in letter and spirit because the nomination of Mrs. Murmu is one among several invisible wonders of the constitution: People are in awe of it!
