Launching a no-holds-barred attack on the Congress, PM Narendra Modi said on Saturday that while the makers of the Constitution understood the importance of unity in diversity and championed it, some people chose not to celebrate it and began sowing seeds of poison instead.
Giving his reply to the debate commemorating 75 years of the adoption of the Constitution, the Prime Minister also spoke about the Emergency and said the period is a taint on the Congress, which will never be washed away. He said Jawaharlal Nehru amended the Constitution for the first time in 1951 and his daughter Indira Gandhi took this forward with her amendments and the imposition of the Emergency when she was in power.
The Congress, he said, amended the Constitution 75 times in six decades.
Beginning his speech, PM Modi said India’s journey since the adoption of the Constitution in 1948 has been “extraordinary” and emphasised that the country has deep roots in democracy, which have been an inspiration for the world.
Recalling the contributions of women and luminaries like BR Ambedkar, Purushottam Das Tandon and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan in the making of the Constitution, the PM said several countries took decades to give women their rights, but India’s Constitution gave them the right to vote from the beginning.
“Our Constitution is the foundation of India’s unity…The makers of the foundation, who were from various spheres, knew the importance of unity in India’s diversity. It is with pain that I am saying this… while the makers of the Constitution had unity in their hearts and minds, some people attacked it. India always celebrated unity in diversity, which is essential for the country’s progress, but some people, who grew up in a mindset of slavery, who couldn’t see what’s best for India… kept looking for contradictions in diversity and, instead of celebrating this treasure, tried to sow seeds of poison in the diversity so that India’s unity could be hurt,” he said in Hindi.