Constitution Day: Holding On to India’s Bravest Idea

On Constitution Day, we return to one of the most courageous choices India ever made: to ground our future not in supremacy or fear, but in a shared commitment to justice, equality, and dignity for all.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and the framers knew that political freedom would mean little without social and economic justice. That work is unfinished. We still see caste discrimination, attacks on minorities, shrinking space for dissent, and attempts to narrow who “really” belongs. But the Constitution also gives us something rare: a clear language for resistance, and a legal and moral framework to protect one another.

At Hindus for Human Rights, we see the Constitution as both a safeguard and an invitation. It safeguards the secular, plural, democratic India so many struggled and sacrificed for. And it invites each of us to stand alongside those whose rights are most at risk, to rebuild trust across communities, and to imagine a future where no one’s worth is decided by caste, creed, gender, or class.

Today, we mark Constitution Day not with nostalgia, but with commitment — to keep this brave idea alive in courts, in streets, in temples and mosques and gurdwaras, and in our everyday choices. The India Ambedkar dreamed of is not lost; it is waiting in the courage of all who refuse to give up on it.