Contextualising Republic Day Celebrations

'Spirit of the Republic Day' is a campaign to contextualize Republic Day Celebrations in schools.While the usual effort is to talk about the Republic Day Parade and do up the school…there are no activities, which connect school events to the adoption of the Constitution.

We aim to enroll schools in India to contextualize Republic Day celebrations by talking about the three Pillars of the Constitution i.e Executive, Legislature and Judiciary and at the same time talk about democracy.

Activity 1 - Three Pillars of Our Constitution

Schools are invited to join in this campaign by inviting local members of the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary i.e a local elected M.P, MLA, councilor, a government Officer and a local judge. All the three will sit on a panel and interact with the school students. The three pillars will be contextualized for the school students in this manner.

Activity 2 - Celebrating Democracy

India is also the largest Democratic Republic. In the run up to 26th January, we invite schools to conduct democratic elections to student bodies in the school. Elections could be conducted for the posts of School Captain, House captains and student office bearers of Clubs like Eco club etc.

Activity 3 - ‘Class and School Constitution’

We invite schools to take part in a constitution building process. Students from each class would sit together and draw a ‘class constitution’, which would enunciate the powers of the class monitor, cleanliness incharge and others. The students would also deliberate on the rights and duties of a class citizen.On the same lines, a ‘school constitution’ would be created.‘Spirit of the Republic Day’ Competition

The above ideas are not the end…There could be hundreds of other interesting ways in which we could celebrate the Republic Day.

No…this competition is not about ideas but about action.If your school has some innovative idea to celebrate Republic Day…Do it. Yes…celebrate the Republic Day with your innovative idea and then send us the idea.

You can make a report on how you celebrated the Republic Day and send us a report.There will be national level showcase of these ideas, where they would be presented to the President of India and awards to be won.

To participate your school would have to implement at least one of the three activities above i.e Three Pillars of the Constitution, Celebrating Democracy and ‘School and Class Constitution’.

Send us a report along with your innovative ideas. The last date of submission is 5th February 2012.

For more details: Contact: Shankar Musafir, Campaign Coordinator, We the People – 26th January 2012 E-mail – smusafir@gmail.com Mobile - 9560604666

Activity 1 – Three Pillars of the Constitution

The Constitution of India came to force on 26th January 1950 and actually defines the Republic of India. Apart from defining structures of the Republic at the Central and State Level it also talks about the basic structure of Executive, Legislature and Judiciary, which are also known as the Three Pillars of the Constitution.

Executive – The term refers to government which is manifested in the Council of Ministers and entire government machinery in the country.

Legislature – refers to the elected member body of Parliament, State Legislatures and Councils. Legislature has the primary role of making laws to govern the country

Judiciary – refers to the judiciary structure in the school with Supreme Court, High Courts and other courts.

While the Constitution defines the Republic in its entirety, an understanding of the Constitution in terms of its pillars is an appropriate method to comprehend it. While students do read about the same in Social Studies, it is difficult for a child to comprehend the structure in the context of his life and the people s/he meets.

In order to make this understanding clear, it is proposed that in the run up to 26th January, the school invites people who are contextual manifestations of Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. The following people could be invited:

Guest for Executive: Technically a sitting minister of government is the executive, but he may be confused with the legislature by small children. So, it is advised to invite a local government official as ‘Executive’. This could be the Local District Collector (DC), Municipal Commissioner, Superintendent of Police (SP), ADM, SDM (Sub-Divisional Magistrate), BDO, Officials of PWD, Irrigation & Public Health (IPH) or any other government department.

Guest for Legislature: This could be an elected Member of Parliament (M.P), or Member of Vidhan Sabha or State Legislature (M.LA), Elected Member of Municipal Council, Elected Member of Zila Parishad, or the Gram Pradhan or elected Head of the Village

Guest for Judiciary: This could be the Chief Justice of India, A judge of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice of a High Court, High Court Judge, Sessions Judge, or Local Judge from the Civil Court. Please do not call Executive Magistrates like DM (District Magistrate) or SDM (Sub-Divisional Magistrate) as it may confuse children.

Discussions
These three people would then sit on a panel and deliberate on where they are in the Constitution of India. Each one of them would speak on the following:

· What is the structure of their pillar (i.e Executive, Legislature or Judiciary) in India? So, a judge would elaborate on the structure right from Supreme Court to High Court and then Local Courts?
· What are the roles and responsibilities of their pillar? For example: The role of a District Magistrate could be implement government schemes like NREGA, Senior Citizens’ Welfare scheme etc.
· What is the relationship of their pillar with the other two pillars? For example: A local M.P could say that once a bill becomes an Act , it is the responsibility of the Executive to implement it and the responsibility of Judiciary to see that if there are any conflicts with respect to the Act – take a decision on them

Apart from the above the guests should be given a chance to share their experiences with children. They should be shown the guest book of the school to share their feedback on celebrating Republic Day in this manner.

Communication
Appropriate Communication needs to go to the guests from the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary for inviting them to the school function. There needs to be a clear communication that the school intends to contextualize the three pillars for children on Republic Day. Suggestive Formats of communication to these People is given in the Annexures. All letters need to be sent on the School Letter Head from the Principal’s Desk.

It would be a good idea to go and meet these people and invite them in person…handing over the letter

Additional Activities:

· -Painting competition for children on the Three Pillars of the Constitution
-Mock Parliament

Activity 2 - Celebrating Democracy

One of the key elements of our Republic is that it’s a democratic Republic. It gives us a reason to celebrate democracy on adopting the Constitution. Democratic Republic means people elect the government (executive).

Contextualising this for the school would mean that students elect their government i.e monitors, house captains, cleanliness incharge etc. The school may not be comfortable to conduct elections for all the above posts. If that is the case, you may choose some posts for which elections could take place.

You could follow the following action plan:

Step 1 – Discussion on Democracy

– Generate a discussion among students on democracy. The following questions could be discussed:

· What is democracy?
· What is the benefit of a democracy?
· Where do we see democracy around us? In government, in institutions, schools
· How can we created democratic structures in school?

At the end of the discussion, tell the students that the school has decided to implement some democratic experiments. The school is conducting elections to some offices.

Step 2 – Declaration of elections

- Declare that elections are being held to some particular posts. Tell the kids that anybody could take part in the elections. Declare an election officer (a teacher or you could experiment with a student). Let some children file nominations and canvass by speaking to children in the classrooms. Declare a voting day

Step 3 – Conduct Elections and Declare results

– Do a polling exercise, where students put votes. Count votes and declare the results.

Possible Activities:

· Call a local official who is part of actual elections and let him or her speak about the actual filing of nominations, the EVM or Electric Voting Machines. The official can share the entire election experience with the kids
· Call a worker/s of a local political party or parties. Ask that person to explain the election experience. Brief the political party worker in advance that this is not a forum to promote their party. The best would be to have workers from two or three parties come together to speak to the kids. Also, brief the children that they are supposed to ask questions related to elections and not on the agendas of the particular political parties.

Activity 3 - School and Class Constitution

Objective:
The objective of this activity is to provide the children with an experience of making the constitution. How difficult it is to put things down on paper?

You could follow the following steps:

Step 1 – Discussion on the Constitution
– Generate a discussion on the Indian Constitution. The following questions could be dealt with:

· What is a Constitution?
· Why do we require a Constitution?
· What is there inside the Constitution?
· Who wrote the Constitution? Can we write our own Constitution?
· Can we change the Constitution? (Amendments)

Declare that the school has decided to experiment with making a constitution for the class, in which each and every student of the class would participate.

Step 2 – Values in the Constitution:
Share with the students that there are certain values enshrined in the Constitution, which are mentioned in the Preamble. Give a copy of the Preamble to children. Justice Leila Seth’s book, ‘We, the Children of India’ can also be distributed at this juncture. Find a copy of the preamble in Annexure 1 of this document. Its also printed on each NCERT textbook.

Have a discussion on the meaning of the values – Justice, Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, Sovereign, ‘Democratic’

Also, tell the children that the words ‘Socialist’ and ‘Secular were added to the Preamble by the 42nd Amendment.

Also have a discussion on the meaning of the word Republic as its Republic Day.


Step 3 – Create the Constitution
– Divide the class into groups of 5 and ask them to create a constitution. Give them pointers like these:

· Who will be the leader of the class? (monitor)
· What would the leader be called? (They could choose another name instead of a monitory. After all what is the need to ‘monitor’)
· What would be the roles and responsibilities of the leader?
· What would be powers of the leader?
· Who will maintain the cleanliness of the class and take on other responsibilities like notice boards etc?
· What will be the rights of the class citizens? What would be their responsibilities?

Let all the groups work individually and later the class gets together and finalises the ‘Class Constitution’.

Take photographs and record the discussions of children.

School Constitution
On a similar pattern, create a ‘School Constitution’. Take 2 students from each class and make a group which will from the school Constitution

Follow steps 1, 2 and 3 above. Just replace the school leader with a class leader. Other posts could include Sports Captain, House Captain – roles and responsibilities.
· The school could also create a Judiciary, which would decide the conflicts of children.