“A Constitution Under Strain”: Dushyant Dave Warns of Eroding Values and Judicial Silence
With a voice sharpened by concern for the republic, Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave declared that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel—now projected as the emblem of a particular political ideology—was in truth a statesman of towering independence, a leader whose legacy transcended partisan appropriation.
Patel, he reminded his audience, not only built the territorial spine of modern India but also played a decisive role in shaping the fundamental rights that today stand “sacred, inviolable, and beyond the reach of political whims.”
Speaking at the 25th Professor Ramlal Parikh Memorial Lecture at the Ahmedabad Management Association, Dave lamented that while Patel’s statues are erected across the nation, the essence of what he safeguarded—constitutional freedoms—is being steadily disregarded.
He delivered particularly sharp criticism of the judiciary. “Some judges in the past,” he said, “wrapped themselves in the labels of ‘liberal’ and ‘socialist’, but when the nation faced its moment of reckoning, they faltered.”
Democracy, Dave argued, survives only when judges refuse to bend under pressure, but “today, our judges seem unable to rise to the occasion.”
Drawing a grave parallel, he remarked that India may not be under a formally proclaimed Emergency, but is living through an “undeclared emergency”—a climate where state power is projected through extrajudicial encounters, arbitrary demolitions of citizens’ homes, and unchecked coercion.
“The Indian Penal Code knows no punishment called bulldozing someone’s house,” he said, calling the practice a profound betrayal of due process.
Dave strongly condemned the prevailing approach to criminal justice. “The principle is simple,” he said—bail is the rule, jail the exception.
Yet courts today, from the lowest levels to the Supreme Court, appear to operate on a presumption of guilt rather than innocence.
This, he asserted, is a direct assault on the fundamental tenets of criminal jurisprudence.
He went on to reflect on the Preamble—the moral heart of the Constitution. While the American Constitution was drafted in mere months, India’s framers engaged in long and deliberate debate.
“Sovereign, democratic, republic”—these foundational principles were carefully chosen.
The later additions of “socialist” and “secular” in 1976 by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did not dilute the original intent but built upon an already profound philosophical core.
In one “extraordinary paragraph,” he said, the framers condensed the timeless human values that define India’s democratic character. Dr B. R. Ambedkar, as chairman of the drafting committee, led this monumental effort.
Meanwhile, Sardar Patel, serving as adviser to the Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee, anchored these values in enforceable guarantees.
“Today,” Dave lamented, “we honour him with monumental statues but forget the very rights he fought to enshrine—and forget even more tragically that these rights are under visible threat.”
Touching on the Constitution’s four pillars—justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity—Dave traced the age-old struggle between the individual and the state.
For centuries, rulers have sought to crush dissent whenever individuals have claimed their rights. India’s freedom fighters endured this brutality under colonial rule, and that pain was infused into the drafting of the Constitution.
It is this lived experience, he said, that makes today’s erosion of rights so alarming.
He concluded by recalling that the Objective Resolution, the philosophical seed of the Preamble, was debated for four days within the Constituent Assembly—an Assembly that sat for 141 days, spending 114 days purely on constitutional deliberation.
“Today, we see the tragic opposite,” he warned—laws rushed through Parliament or state legislatures by voice vote, without scrutiny, without debate, and without respect for democratic process.
