Justice Hariparanthaman, former judge of the Madras High Court; Siddharth Varadarajan, Founder and Editor of The Wire; Justice Jasti Chelameswar, retired judge of the Supreme Court; and actor Prakash Raj at the event on Friday.
| Photo Credit: RAGHUNATHAN SR
The need for protecting the various ideals enshrined in the Constitution, amidst consistent and specific attempts to undermine them, came to the fore during an event organised by the Constitution Protection Conference in Chennai on Friday evening that was addressed by speakers drawn from various walks of life.
Addressing a gathering at the YMCA campus in Nandanam in Chennai, former Supreme Court judge Jasti Chelameswar emphasised the significance of the Constitution in a democracy. “Ultimately, it is the people who protect the Constitution and not individual judges or institutions or the Election Commission or the Supreme Court or the judiciary..,” he said.
Recalling the point in time the Constitution was being written for the country, which was quite diverse, Mr. Chelameswar said: “The framers of the Constitution were conscious of the fact, that to hold the country together, they believed that they must create a document which would take care of every interest of every one of these groups.”
Actor and social activist Prakash Raj said that in the country, democracy was present only till the conduct of elections. He said that the late leader Babasaheb B.R. Ambedkar wrote the Constitution not only for a certain section of society but for all. Criticising the BJP government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said that the youth have identified who Mr. Modi really was and the former was forced to make reels on social media.
Referring to recent protests by youth in various parts of the country, Mr. Prakash Raj said that he believed in the youth. “There is no need for us to become politicians or join a political party. It is sufficient that the elected representatives fear that they would be questioned by the people and he would defeated if he did not do his job.”
In his speech, Siddharth Varadarajan, Founder and Editor of The Wire, outlined several attempts by the Union government over the past 12 years to undermine constitutional rights and protections for citizens. “We have a situation where the government is trying to decide and choose who is an Indian and who is not!”
One of the Constitution’s “weaknesses,” he said, was that without specific provisions, it left Parliament and successive governments to decide how the Election Commission was constituted. “The government is using its power to select the Election Commission in such a way that it is attacking the independence of the Election Commission and attacking the very concept of fee and fair elections”
The process “under the garb of Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls”, he said, removed several lakh people from the rolls and it was also one of the fundamental ways in which the promise of the Constitution was being undermined. “The government wants to decide who will elect and it is getting the Election Commission to delete names.”
Referring to attempts to bring about the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 “in the name of protecting India from foreign influence”, Mr. Varadarajan pointed out how the Union government did not consider the pressure from US president Donald Trump on India from where the country should buy oil, as foreign influence.
Published – August 22, 2026 01:02 am IST
