Playing with the preamble: A long-running project

It would be incorrect to categorise the coordinated RSS-BJP attack on the words “secular” and “socialist” in the preamble of the Indian Constitution as a “debate” in the India of today. This is a thought-through agenda that does not serve the nation or the RSS-BJP. It only serves to confirm widespread fears that the combine is looking for newer ways to play with the basic structure of the Constitution, adding weight to the view long propagated that the RSS never really accepted B R Ambedkar’s Constitution. It is also a reminder of the failed chaar sau paar campaign that curtailed the BJP amid fears that the three-fourths majority it sought in the general elections of 2024 was to have the numbers to tamper with the Constitution. If that goal continues to this day, it only speaks of the fixedness of a divisive agenda that cannot be concealed by the attempted cleverness in citing the Emergency to write down or erase “socialist” and “secular” from the Constitution.

By running this campaign, the BJP also runs the risk of being seen more as a party aligned to the powerful interests of big business, turning away from welfarism and more firmly into the grip of chosen crony capitalists who have fattened since the party took power at the Centre in 2014. The policies have brought increasing inequality, built jobless growth and have in part led to giveaways like the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), described by the government as “amongst the world’s biggest social welfare schemes aimed at ensuring food and nutrition security.”

The PMGKAY provides free grains to over 800 million Indians at an estimated cost of Rs 11.8 lakh crore over five years. If this scheme (and a host of others) do not come from a belief in the ideals of a welfare State, then what do they stand for? Are these doles to keep the poor quiet while pro-rich policies take hold? Is there dishonesty at the heart of policy-making, or is the real situation of India so dire that as much as 70% of India (that benefits from the scheme) cannot hold out without free grains? The picture is further complicated by the Prime Minister’s views, for example, against free public bus rides for women in several states, a policy that enables mobility and economic empowerment for women. So are the RSS-BJP for or against distributive justice and the ideology of redistribution?

While it is true that “socialist” and “secular” were inserted in the preamble by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act during the Emergency, which remains a dark chapter in the history of free India, it is not true that the values go against the spirit of the Constitution. These are effectively the only parts of the amendment that sit today 50 years down the line. As Subash C Kashyap, the former Secretary General of the 7th, 8th and 9th Lok Sabha and a constitutional expert, has written: “...the addition (of the two words) had the effect only of affirming and clarifying what was believed to be already present as a basic feature of the Constitution.”

In 1974 (St Xavier College Society v/s State of Gujarat), the Supreme Court held that “though the Constitution did not speak of a secular state, there could be no doubt that the Constitution-makers wanted to establish such a State,” Kashyap writes. Also, as he notes, secularism in particular is inherent in the guarantee of freedom of religion as a fundamental right. Ditto for socialism because the preamble itself spelt out the high ideals when it was resolved to secure to all citizens “justice, social, economic and political”; and “equality of status and opportunity”.

“A precious heritage”

In the historic Keshavananda Bharati case of 1973, well before the Emergency, a 13-judge bench ruled by the majority that the “secular character of the Constitution” was part of its “basic structure”, which is “of supreme importance” and “cannot by any form of amendment be destroyed”. The Court identified the following as features of the “basic structure” that cannot be touched: (a) Supremacy of the Constitution (b) Republican and democratic form of government (c) Secular character of the Constitution (d) Separation of powers between the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary (e) Federal character of the Constitution.

After the Emergency, in the Minerva Mills case of July 1980, the Court ruled that “no exception can be taken” to the changes in the preamble because those amendments give vitality to its philosophy; “they afford strength and succour to its foundation”. The Court said: “They offer promise of more; they do not scuttle a precious heritage”.

It is this precious heritage that is now sought to be scuttled. A similar attempt was seen in 2015 when the Union government issued ads that depicted an image of the preamble but without the words “socialist” and “secular”. Soon, BJP leaders Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu and Amit Shah denied that there was any move to amend the Preamble, according to reports.

But the raking up of the issue again indicates that nothing about the BJP might be casual or not thought through with a load of ideological assumptions and fixed frames that do not help policy in a fast-changing world. If this is an over-planned, strategically designed precision strike to take the nation in a new direction, it doesn’t speak well of the concerns and priorities of the ruling alliance. This is a time India faces several burning issues, the global turmoil adding to internal woes. It is a pity if the ruling alliance would spend its energies on redacting well-accepted and highly regarded parts of the preamble rather than focusing on building for the future.

(The writer is a journalist and faculty member at SPJIMR; Syndicate: The Billion Press)