Secularism and socialism are woven into India's constitutional fabric. You can't shred that

The sovereign democratic republic of India on November 26, 1949, did not, on January 3, 1977, during the Emergency, overnight morph with the coming into force of the 42nd constitutional amendment, into a secular socialist republic. Similarly, today the preamble and the Constitution have not ceased to be secular or socialist, merely because an advertisement of the information and broadcasting ministry has chosen to go back to the original version. Nor will the Constitution itself cease to be secular or socialist even if by an amendment these words are dropped again at a later date. Secularism and socialism are woven into the constitutional fabric.

Read the original preamble - "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 and integrity 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 reading will confirm that there is no reference to God whatsoever in the preamble. Unlike the United States, we did not pledge to make "One nation under God". The constituent Assembly "solemnly affirmed" its resolve, without seeking the munificence of any deity or supernatural power of any denomination. A solemn affirmation of the people's resolve was sufficient to assure to its all its citizens "social, economic and political JUSTICE and EQUALITY of status and of opportunity". Any neutral reader would very well recognise these phrases as indicating a nascent republic's mission statement on socialism. When the preamble further promised "LIBERTY, of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship" it provided for the atheist, theist and the agnostic alike. Secularism in as a guiding principle was writ large on it.

In fact, there is an illuminating discussion in the constituent Assembly debates of November 15, 1949, when Professor KT Shah wanted to include the words "secular federal socialist" in Article 1 of the Constitution. This article which now ultimately reads "India that is Bharat shall be a union of states".

Shah said "...As it is, in suggesting this amendment, I am anxious to point out that this is not only a statement of fact as it exists, but also embodies an aspiration which it is hoped will be soon realised. The amendment tries to add three words to the descriptions of our State or Union: that is to say, the new Union shall be a Federal, Secular, Socialist Union of States". Further ".. as regards the Secular character of the State, we have been told time and again from every platform, that ours is a secular State. If that is true, if that holds good, I do not see why the term could not be added or inserted in the Constitution itself, once again, to guard against any possibility of misunderstanding or misapprehension. The term 'secular', I agree, does not find place necessarily in constitutions on which ours seems to have been modelled. But every constitution is framed in the background of the people concerned. The mere fact, therefore, that such description is not formally or specifically adopted to distinguish one state from another, or to emphasis the character of our state is no reason, in my opinion, why we should not insert now at this hour, when we are making our Constitution, this very clear and emphatic description of that State. The secularity of the state must be stressed in view not only of the unhappy experiences we had last year and in the years before and the excesses to which, in the name of religion, communalism or sectarianism can go, but I intend also to emphasis by this description the character and nature of the state which we are constituting today, which would ensure to all its peoples, all its citizens that in all matters relating to the governance of the country and dealings between man and man and dealings between citizen and Government the consideration that will actuate will be the objective realities of the situation, the material factors that condition our being, our living and our acting. For that purpose and in that connection no extraneous considerations or authority will be allowed to interfere, so that the relations between man and man, the relation of the citizen to the state, the relations of the states inter se may not be influenced by those other considerations which will result in injustice or inequality as between the several citizens that constitute the people of India".

Dr Ambedkar in reply said "Sir, I regret that I cannot accept the amendment of Prof KT Shah. My objections, stated briefly are two. In the first place the Constitution, as I stated in my opening speech in support of the motion I made before the House, is merely a mechanism for the purpose of regulating the work of the various organs of the State. It is not a mechanism where by particular members or particular parties are installed in office. 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. If you state in the Constitution that the social organisation of the State shall take a particular form, you are, in my judgment, taking away the liberty of the people to decide what should be the social organisation in which they wish to live. It is perfectly possible today, for the majority people to hold that the socialist organisation of society is better than the capitalist organisation of society. But it would be perfectly possible for thinking people to devise some other form of social organisation which might be better than the socialist organisation of today or of tomorrow. I do not see therefore why the Constitution should tie down the people to live in a particular form and not leave it to the people themselves to decide it for themselves. This is one reason why the amendment should be opposed. The second reason is that the amendment is purely superfluous. My Honourable friend, Prof Shah, does not seem to have taken into account the fact that apart from the Fundamental Rights, which we have embodied in the Constitution, we have also introduced other sections which deal with directive principles of state policy. If my honourable friend were to read the Articles contained in Part IV, he will find that both the Legislature as well as the Executive have been placed by this Constitution under certain definite obligations as to the form of their policy.Now, to read only Article 31, which deals with this matter: It says: "The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing - (i) that the citizens, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood; (ii) that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good; (iii) that the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment; (iv) that there is equal pay for equal work for both men and women;...." There are some other items more or less in the same strain. What I would like to ask Professor Shah is this: If these directive principles to which I have drawn attention are not socialistic in their direction and in their content, I fail to understand what more socialism can be. Therefore my submission is that these socialist principles are already embodied in our Constitution and it is unnecessary to accept this amendment". 

Professor Shah's amendment was defeated but two things stand out in this exchange. Firstly, Ambedkar only discussed the economic philosophy of the Constitution and secondly, he felt that what was already explicit in the Constitution, need not be reiterated. Lastly, we must also remember that the preamble itself was drafted only after the Constitution was approved by the constituent Assembly. The preamble thus became an one page, executive summary of the Constitution's contents. The 42nd Amendment among other things, chose to make explicit in the preamble that which was already explicit in the body.

Significantly, the 44th Amendment by the Janata government which undid most of the damage of the 42nd Amendment, chose to preserve the addition of secular and socialist to the preamble. The law minister who piloted it was Shanti Bhushan and his collegues in the ministry were LK Advani and AB Vajpayee. Their inheriors cannot presume to forget constitutional history, in assuming that constitutional values are just meaningless words to be redacted from a document. Secularism and socialism are inherent in the basic structure of the national book, and are beyond the power of transient parliamentary majorities to efface or abridge.