The Constitution is the book of the people. It belongs to each one of us. It impacts each one of our lives, whatever our background. It protects us as well as liberates us. But it is not an easy text to read. How many of us have, and can, actually read that book? It runs to over 400 pages. It is filled with definitions, qualifications and descriptions of various acts. If this is a book of the people and for the people, then should it not be understandable to all the citizens of the country?

The language in it can be deceptively simple, as well as bureaucratically dense. Consider the example of Fundamental Rights. The first two rights under this are the right to equality and the right against discrimination by the State. It is not easy to understand these concepts of equality and discrimination. Firstly, there is ambiguity in the meaning of these words. Secondly, these words are part of sentences and that structure restricts their meanings. Thirdly, these sentences do not seem to match the reality on the ground for millions of citizens. Fourthly, what follows these sentences are qualifications of various kinds.

For the Constitution to become operational, these words have to be interpreted by specialists — lawyers, judges and scholars in these fields. The meaning of words such as equality, justice and discrimination cannot be taken as the popular meaning people may have of them. These become technical words and scholars from different disciplines spend a lot of time (and words!) trying to uncover their meaning.

If this is the case with two simple lines in this book, imagine what it means to read the whole book. Who actually reads it other than lawyers and judges? Forget the person on the street, it would be a surprise if even a fraction of our politicians have read this book.

It is for this reason that one can appreciate the importance of the Preamble of the Constitution. On one page, the Preamble lists out the vision of the Constitution. In this sense, the Preamble has rightly been called the spirit of the Constitution. Although this image is attractive, it is also problematic since it reduces the complexity of reading a text to a few core concepts. The meaning of these core concepts in the Preamble such as democratic, justice, equality, fraternity and secular are also deeply contested. Is the Preamble the spirit only because it simplifies a complex text?

We can read the Constitution as a text written in a language and search for its meaning. Or we can discover the meaning of this text without entering into this analysis. The spirit of the text is a way to understand something of the text beyond the meanings associated with the language of the text.

When we encounter a word, we naturally search for its meaning. But the meaning of these words is only more words, and each of these words also has meaning. A word such as secular in the Preamble can be understood linguistically or it can be understood in its spirit. What this means is that our understanding of this term is not restricted to language but to a feeling, to a sense of knowing what it means. Thus, one way to understand the spirit of language is to recognise a domain of feeling and experiences associated with language, not reducible to the meanings of words and sentences. Spirit connotes a sense of escaping from various constraints of meaning when seen from the perspective of language alone.

The word equality can be understood not only in terms of its meaning but also in terms of how it is experienced. This word can evoke a sense of fairness, justice, a feeling of compassion towards all those who are not as fortunate as each one of us. To feel what the text is saying is to have an emotional relation to the text.

So how does one discover the spirit of the Constitution? First of all, the Constitution is a document that is equally applicable to all, which means that the meaning of the words in it has to apply to all equally. How can one understand this collective meaning? It can only be understood when each one of us tries to imagine this meaning from the perspective of others, of all other citizens under one Constitution. It is this imagination of the collective vision that is the spirit of the text.

What is unique to the Indian Constitution is that this vision of the collective is driven from the perspective of those who are the worst-off in a society. The spirit of the word justice can be found when we think about justice not from one’s own perspective but from the perspective of those who are denied basic justice in the same society. The spirit of justice is not the technical meaning of the word justice, but the felt feeling when imagined from the perspective of those who are denied these qualities.

So, those who claim that they will protect the spirit of the Constitution will first have to protect the collective vision of all the citizens irrespective of class, caste, religion and gender.

Sundar Sarukkai’s recent books include The Social Life of Democracy and a novel, Following a Prayer. The views expressed are personal