Constitution – Conscience and Compass

Today is the day we honour our Constitution.  Recently, I was going through a speech of my friend for the Republic day.  That left me deliberating on what I think about Constitution.

We are born into a predefined moral structure of our family. As we grow up we are influenced by and tend to imbibe the values defined by the adults in the family. This set of family values become your conscious and moral compass based on which our actions are defined as right or wrong.

As we grow into adolescence, we get exposed to societal norms and etiquettes. We amend or add on to our thought process and views to fit into the society and peer groups. At this stage, our conscious and moral compass is greatly influenced by the groups we belong to.

Once we mature into young adults, we become more aware about the world out there and understand a bit more about our roots, in a broader perspective. We tend to reflect on where our country stands on various issues and the reasons for the decisions and actions by international organisations.  Just like a family’s  values helps them to decide the way they have to proceed when a fork comes in their path, a constitution acts as the conscience and moral compass  for the country to debate, decide, discard or define their actions and behaviour.

As we grow into an adult, somewhere along the way, we subconsciously and sometimes, through experience, reject or accept many of the values imbibed from family, society, country and world as a whole, forming our own personal constitution – which becomes our conscience and moral compass based on which we decide our actions and behaviour- which ultimately decides our destiny and way of life.

In Psychology, constitution stands for the aggregate of a person’s physical and psychological characteristics. When we refer to someone having a “strong constitution,” it usually means that the person is of strong mind and body.   The personal values we adhere to eventually should help as to become strong in our mind and body.  And that’s what a country’s constitution also should do – Make the country strong – physically, morally and spiritually.

Jai Hind! I am proud and grateful to be born and be an Indian!