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The Hindu
04-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
A deliberate strategy to usher in a communal order
On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the Indian Constitution, the Supreme Court of India reaffirmed the foundational character of the Indian Republic by upholding the inclusion of the words 'secular' and 'socialist' in the Constitution's Preamble. These words, introduced through the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976, by the Indira Gandhi-led government during the Emergency, have been the target of repeated political and legal attacks by right-wing forces. Dismissing a batch of petitions challenging these additions, a Bench of the Supreme Court recently upheld the addition of these words, arguing that the mere absence of these terms in the original Preamble adopted on November 26, 1949, cannot invalidate their inclusion. This legal reaffirmation was a powerful signal from the judiciary. But the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological backbone of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), chose to launch a fresh offensive on the very idea of India as enshrined in the Constitution. RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale made a brazen demand: the removal of 'secular' and 'socialist' from the Preamble, which, according to him, were alien to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's constitutional vision. The Vice-President of India, Jagdeep Dhankhar, went a step further, terming the insertion of these words as 'sacrilege to the spirit of Sanatan'. It is no coincidence that these statements are being made from some of the highest offices of the land. This is not an intellectual debate. This is a deliberate political strategy to delegitimise the modern, plural, democratic republic of India and to usher in a communal and hierarchical order. An agenda, from fringe to mainstream When the Constitution was being framed, the Constituent Assembly, emphatically and unanimously, supported the idea of a secular state. Not a single member argued for a theocratic state. The idea of India was built on the foundations of unity in diversity — a rejection of colonial divide-and-rule, of communal politics, and of caste and religious supremacy. Today, the RSS-BJP establishment is working relentlessly to dismantle that consensus and impose the idea of a Hindu Rashtra. This agenda has moved from fringe rhetoric to the political mainstream. On the day of the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a provocative statement equating 'Ram with Rashtra and Dev with Desh'. This kind of fusion of religion and state is exactly what the framers of the Constitution warned against. It is also directly in contradiction to the Supreme Court's ruling that secularism is a part of the basic structure of the Constitution — something that cannot be amended or erased, even by Parliament. Leaders and their warnings The warnings of our national leaders resonate even more forcefully today. In 1931, Mahatma Gandhi, in his resolution on Fundamental Rights, insisted that the state must remain neutral in religious matters. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar too reflected this in the line, 'The State shall not recognise any religion as State religion.' What is particularly instructive,and ironic, is that the Hindu Mahasabha, which boycotted the freedom movement and opposed secular nationalism, included a similar provision in its 1944 Hindustan Free State Act. The Constituent Assembly Debates further highlight the intent of India's founding generation. On August 27, 1947, Govind Ballabh Pant posed a direct question: 'Do you want a real national secular State or a theocratic State?' He warned that if India became a theocracy, it could only be a Hindu state, raising questions about the status and security of those who would be excluded from such a polity. Jaspat Roy Kapoor, on November 21, 1949, noted that Gandhi had made it clear: religion should be a personal matter. On November 22, 1949, Begum Aizaz Rasul called secularism 'the most outstanding feature' of the Constitution and expressed hope that it would remain 'guarded and unsullied'. On October 14, 1949, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel reassured the nation that the Constitution of free India would not be 'disfigured by any provision on a communal basis.' And on November 23, T.J.M. Wilson warned that the clouds threatening India's secular character were already forming. These warnings were not alarmist but were deeply perceptive, and speak with urgency to our times. The present RSS-led campaign is also aimed at discrediting and eliminating the socialist orientation of the Constitution. Dr. Ambedkar, in the Constituent Assembly, clearly noted that the Directive Principles of State Policy enshrined in Part IV of the Constitution were rooted in socialist ideals. The Supreme Court's recent decision, rightly interpreted the term 'socialist' in the Preamble as synonymous with a welfare state. This vision resonates with B.R. Ambedkar's own emphasis on the social and economic transformation of India — an end to caste exploitation, landlessness, poverty, and discrimination. Socialism means creating conditions for equality and justice — not the importation of any foreign ideology, but the realisation of the promises of the freedom struggle. In this regard, B.R. Ambedkar issued perhaps the most unambiguous warning ever — in Pakistan or the Partition of India, he wrote: 'If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country… Hindu Raj must be prevented at any cost.' That cost is now upon us. The RSS's demand to remove the terms 'secular' and 'socialist' from the Constitution is part of a long-term project to dismantle the very edifice of the modern Indian Republic and to institutionalise a new order built on religious supremacy, caste hierarchy, market fundamentalism, and political authoritarianism. The need for resistance This must be resisted — through public awareness, legal challenge, political mobilisation, and mass democratic struggle. The Constitution is not just a legal document. It is a political, social, and moral covenant forged in the crucible of our freedom struggle. It embodies the dreams of countless martyrs, revolutionaries, and constitutionalists who envisioned an India that belonged to all its people. To defend secularism and socialism today is to defend democracy itself. It is to defend the right of every citizen — regardless of faith, caste, class, or gender — to live with dignity, equality, and freedom. The Republic must be protected, nourished, and, if necessary, defended against those who seek to destroy it from within. Let us rise to that responsibility, with courage, with clarity, and with collective resolve. D. Raja is General Secretary, Communist Party of India
Indian Express
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
RSS leader Dattatreya Hosabale questions ‘socialist', ‘secular' in Preamble: Why the words were inserted in 1976
Commemorating 50 years of the imposition of the Emergency at an event, RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale on Thursday (June 26) said a discussion was merited on the words 'socialist' and 'secular' in the Preamble of the Constitution. Hosabale said, 'The words socialist and secular were added to the Preamble [during the Emergency]. No attempt was made to remove them later. So, there should be a discussion on whether they should remain. I say this in a building (Ambedkar International Centre) named after Babasaheb Ambedkar, whose Constitution did not have these words in the Preamble.' Multiple legal challenges have been filed over the years against the inclusion of the words. Just last year, the Supreme Court upheld them in a verdict. Here is why. Essentially, the preamble includes the core philosophy of the Constitution and serves as an introduction to it. The Preamble of the Constitution that commenced in 1950 read: 'WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity of the Nation; IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.' The description of India as a 'secular' country in particular, has been debated intensely over the past four decades; with critics, mostly on the Right, claiming that these 'imposed' terms sanction 'pseudo-secularism', 'vote-bank politics' and 'minority appeasement'. The words were added by The Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976, during the Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Imposing the Emergency under Article 352 allowed her government to curb civil liberties and centralise power. Let's look at the word 'socialist' first. Over her years in government, Gandhi had attempted to cement her approval among the masses on the basis of a socialist and pro-poor image with slogans such as 'garibi hatao' (Eradicate poverty). Her Emergency government inserted the word in the Preamble to underline that socialism was a goal and philosophy of the Indian state. It needs to be stressed, however, that the socialism envisaged by the Indian state was not the socialism of the USSR or China of the time — it did not envisage the nationalisation of all of India's means of production. Gandhi herself clarified that 'we have our own brand of socialism', under which 'we will nationalise [only] the sectors where we feel the necessity'. She underlined that 'just nationalisation is not our type of socialism'. The people of India profess numerous faiths, and their unity and fraternity, notwithstanding the differences in religious beliefs, were sought to be achieved by enshrining the ideal of 'secularism' in the Preamble. In essence, this means that the state protects all religions equally, maintains neutrality and impartiality towards all religions, and does not uphold any one religion as a 'state religion'. A secular Indian state was founded on the idea that it is concerned with the relationship between humans, and not between human beings and God, which is a matter of individual choice and individual conscience. Secularism in the Indian Constitution, therefore, is not a question of religious sentiment, but a question of law. The secular nature of the Indian state is secured by Articles 25-28, part of the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Yes, in essence, it was always a part of the philosophy of the Constitution. The founders of the Indian Republic adopted Articles 25, 26, and 27 with the explicit intention of furthering and promoting the philosophy of secularism in the Constitution. The 42nd Amendment only formally inserted the word into the Constitution and made explicit what was already implicit. In fact, the Constituent Assembly specifically discussed the inclusion of these words in the Preamble, and decided not to do so. After members such as K T Shah and Brajeshwar Prasad raised the demand to add these words to the preamble, Dr B R Ambedkar put forward the following argument: 'What should be the policy of the State, how the Society should be organised in its social and economic side are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances. It cannot be laid down in the Constitution itself because that is destroying democracy altogether.' What was the Supreme Court case? In July 2020, a Supreme Court advocate by the name of Dr. Balram Singh filed a petition challenging the inclusion of the words 'socialist' and 'secular' in the Preamble of the Constitution. Later, former Law Minister Subramaniam Swamy and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay also filed petitions with similar challenges. The court rejected these arguments in a short, seven-page order in November 2024, with Justices Sanjiv Khanna and P V Sanjay Kumar noting that 'the flaws and weaknesses in the arguments are obvious and manifest.' When the Constitution was being drafted, the court noted that the meaning of the word secular was 'considered imprecise' as some scholars (particularly in the West) had interpreted secularism as being opposed to religion. With time though, the court held that 'India has developed its own interpretation of secularism, wherein the State neither supports any religion nor penalises the profession and practice of any faith'. The ideals espoused in the Preamble — fraternity, equality, individual dignity and liberty among others — 'reflect this secular ethos', the court held. Similarly, the court held that the word socialism has also evolved to have a unique meaning in India. It held that socialism refers to '(the) principle of economic and social justice, wherein the State ensures that no citizen is disadvantaged due to economic or social circumstances' and does not necessitate restrictions on the private sector which has 'flourished, expanded, and grown over the years, contributing significantly to the upliftment of marginalized and underprivileged sections in different ways'. Finally, it held that there was no justification for challenging the 42nd amendment nearly 44 years after its enactment. This explainer draws upon previous explainers published in 2024 and 2022.
