Nothing but the Secular Socialist democratic India

The Sangh Parivar’s move to declare the country as Hindu Rashtra has suffered a huge setback as the Supreme Court dismissed its petitions against the inclusion of the words socialism and secularism in the preamble of the Constitution carried out through the 42nd Amendment In 1976, during the Emergency. The other amends that the the Indira Gandhi government brought in the 42nd amendment were previously repealed by the Janata government through the 43rd and 44th amendments when it came to power in 1977. It should be remembered that the addition of secular and socialist in the preamble of the constitution was still maintained. The Janata government made up by the prominent Hindutva leaders including Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lalkrishna Advani retained the amendment in the preamble having obviously considered it very relevant.

The essence of the constitution prepared by Dr. Ambedkar and his colleagues is that India, a land of various religions, even without having the title of secular, is a democratic state where all the citizens are treated with equal rights and considerations. Following months of deliberations in the Constituent Assembly the Constitution was finally approved taking into consideration the thoughtful opinions of representatives for all sections of people. The essence of secularism as explained by Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru and others is about showing equal respect to all religions without giving special consideration or neglect to any in a country where the majority of the people are religious. However, a quarter century after the independence when the tendency of giving special consideration to the majority and neglect to the minority became stronger, the Parliament approved with a two-thirds majority the renaming as Sovereign, Socialist, Secular Democratic Republic through the 42nd Constitutional Amendment.

The observations made by the Supreme Court while rejecting the arguments in the petitions filed by BJP leaders Subramanian Swamy, Adv. Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and Dr. Balaram Singh are noteworthy. One argument was that the 1976 amendment could not be given retrospective effect. If it were the case, would it not affect all other amendments, the court asked. Rejecting the argument that inclusion of socialism trammels the government from implementing its choice of economic policy, the court stated that socialism cannot be narrowly interpreted only as an economic policy, but it represents a welfare state with equal opportunities. However, the idea of egalitarianism that the founders of socialism enshrined in their book does not exist anywhere in the world today. The socialism today stands for a system that ensures social justice and economic stability for all people unlike the exploitative capitalism. Secularism, on the other hand, may have been interpreted in dictionaries as non-religions or rejection of religion. but India's secularism never fundamentally rejects or limits religion. But as the court made it clear all religions are treated equally. The Supreme Court itself has often pointed out the meaning of the constitutional clauses guaranteeing freedom of belief and religion. The petitioners background could make it clear why they insist on having secularism removed from the Constitution. The urge behind this move is to turn India into an insular and sectarian nation based on Hindutva. They cannot forgive proclaiming secularism as the fundamental characteristic of the state when their raging campaigns, portraying Christianity and Islam as foreign religions alongside branding their followers as traitors, have reached a peak for more than a decade. It must be remembered that the fascist forces will not give up their efforts to amend the Constitution through the Parliament after the Supreme Court has blocked their ambition. The only remedy is the patriots should be vigilant to prevent it democratically.