Imagine, for a moment, an alternate history. Mahatma Gandhi, instead of leading the “Harijan” temple entry movement in the streets, stands today before the Supreme Court of India. He is there to plead for the fundamental right of entry into the sanctum sanctorum. Opposing his petition is the Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta.
One must clarify that while the followers of Dr Ambedkar would have critiqued Gandhi’s use of the word “Harijan”, on the specific battlefield of the right of the Dalit community to claim the temple as their own, they would have stood firmly by his side.
Outside the courtroom, the air is thick with hostility. The “tranquillity” of a status quoist society has been shattered. Mehta, representing the state, is deeply troubled by this loss of “peace”. Mehta’s contention is predictable: this is an internal affair of Hinduism and Hindu society. He argues that the court has no jurisdiction here; the rituals and practices of a faith must be governed by its own adherents, who decide them by consensus. To him, the court’s intervention is an overreach into the sacred.
Gandhi, in his characteristic style, would argue that untouchability is no essential part of Hinduism; the faith remains whole, perhaps even purer, without this rot. But as soon as the court appears inclined to agree, Mehta pivots to a technicality: it is not the business of a secular court to adjudicate which religious practice is “essential” and which is not.
Constitutional morality
Gandhi would invoke the constitutional framework. He would demand the right to equality against the grain of discrimination, asserting that Dalits, as Hindus, possess an inherent right to worship their deities. He would speak of constitutional morality. He would remind the bench of the “transformative promise” of our founding document—arguing that if the privileged caste Hindu has the right to pray, so does the Dalit.
Solicitor General Mehta, however, would urge the court to dismiss the petition outright. His logic? This demand ruptures tradition. Every religion, every specific sect, must have the autonomy to set boundaries and enforce controls. He would argue that the religious rights of Dalits are not being violated—after all, they can pray at home or elsewhere. Why this “stubborn insistence” on entering temples held by the upper castes?
When Gandhi pleads for the court to uphold constitutional morality, Mehta dismisses it as fiction. He confesses that he does not know what it truly means. Democracy, he insists, functions on the will of the majority. If the majority favours a tradition, it cannot be discarded at the altar of an abstract morality. To Mehta, the very idea of constitutional morality is an “unfortunate concept” that must die at the earliest.
Gandhi would then invoke the legacy of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, arguing that the Constitution was designed specifically to facilitate social transformation—a journey towards liberty, equality, and fraternity. Mehta’s rebuttal remains consistent: this is mere ethereal talk. He would label transformative constitutionality as nothing more than “sentimental jargon”, unfit for the hard business of law-making or judicial decree.
For Mehta, the common, shared morality of society is supreme. Constitutional morality cannot, and should not, displace social morality. For him, “public morality” is that which the community accepts; it is the bedrock of shared values. To impose a constitutional standard against these values, he warns, is an invitation to anarchy.
He looks back at Gandhi’s “obsession” with temple entry and asks: Wasn’t everything peaceful before this? Wasn’t there “harmony” in the villages? He accuses Gandhi of using a “foreign concept” like constitutional morality to break centuries-old traditions.
Is it truly an ambiguous concept? As academic Pratap Bhanu Mehta rightly notes, constitutional morality is born of constitutional sensibility. It encompasses self-restraint, respect for diversity, deference to process, a healthy suspicion of the “tyranny of the majority,” and a commitment to an open culture of critique.
The Constitution displayed at a flower show, in Mysuru, on December 21, 2025. Dr B.R. Ambedkar wrote, “Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy.“ | Photo Credit: M.A. Sriram
Dr Ambedkar understood its necessity because he knew the Indian soil was essentially undemocratic. To make the plant of democracy thrive, this soil had to be tilled and overturned. Constitutional morality was his chosen tool. In his oft-quoted words:
“Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality, and fraternity as the principles of life. They form a union of trinity... without equality, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality without liberty would kill individual initiative... without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of things.”
During the Sabarimala hearings, the Solicitor General made no secret of his disdain for this doctrine, calling it a matter of political science and “vague”. He remains a staunch advocate for social or public morality. Had the Indian physician and feminist Rukhmabai stood before today’s court seeking her freedom, one suspects Mehta would have recommended her imprisonment, for she too dared to prioritise individual liberty and equality over the “morality” of the collective.
I am not stretching the argument if I say that the Solicitor General would have opposed any attempt to outlaw untouchability by invoking the concept of public morality. He would ask: “Why should you want to be touched by me?” Justice Nagarathna asked whether women in the age group of 10 to 50 should become “untouchable” for four days a month and then accepted for the rest of the month. If a woman comes to the courts asking for access everywhere on all days of the month, Mehta would oppose her, citing norms of public morality.
Constitutional morality is the shield created for the traditionally weak and marginalised; it is the torchlight that guides us on the democratic path. As we see the attempts to snatch and extinguish this torch—as seen in the opposition to women aged 10 to 50 entering the Sabarimala temple—it is time for society to wake up. We must be wary of those who wish to return us to the darkness of social morality at the expense of our constitutional soul.
Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at Delhi University and writes literary and cultural criticism.
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