Retrospective Truths: Valmiki, Ayodhya, IBC 32A, and the Stake of Constitutional Secularism
Retrospective Truths: Valmiki, Ayodhya, IBC 32A, and the Stake of Constitutional Secularism Posted on 18th March, 2026 (GMT 02:37 hrs) Dedicated to Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Barrister-at-law ABSTRACT This short article explores a striking parallel between poetic creation and state-sanctioned reality-making in contemporary India. Drawing from Rabindranath Tagore’s poetic dialogue with Narada in the context of Valmiki’s Ramayana—where the poet’s imaginative mind-realm is declared Rama’s truer birthplace than historical Ayodhya—the discussion extends to two landmark institutional acts: the Supreme Court’s 2019 Ayodhya verdict (with Justice D.Y. Chandrachud’s later confession of seeking divine guidance) and Section 32A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which retrospectively absolves corporate debtors of pre-insolvency offences upon plan approval, as vividly illustrated in the DHFL-Piramal takeover. Both instances represent exercises in retrospective ontological surgery...