At a time when a petition has been filed in court seeking the removal of the “undemocratic” words socialist/socialism and secular/secularism from the Constitution, it can be said with certainty that there will be major controversy on this. Of these two, “secularism” in particular is a sensitive subject. However, there is no escaping the fact that “secular” and “socialist” are indeed the two most “undemocratic” words in the Constitution of the world’s largest democracy. They were introduced by the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution in October-November 1976, during the Emergency. At the time, the opposition leaders were in jail and all Parliamentary procedures were bypassed to pass the amendment. After the fall of Indira Gandhi’s government in 1977, the next government brought the 44th Amendment to reverse the 42nd Amendment, but allowed the words secular and socialist to stay in the Constitution. Apparently, poverty, following in the footsteps of the Soviet Socialist Republic, continued to be glorious for successive Indian governments at least until 1991, when liberalization happened and socialism was junked to a large extent. In the meanwhile, secular/secularism came to mean affirmative action to a particular minority community, apart from giving the majority community the minority complex. Ironically, even though voices were raised in favour of “secularism” and “socialism” at the time of the framing of the Constitution, both Jawaharlal Nehru and B.R. Ambedkar were opposed to introducing these words in the Constitution. A western concept, secularism is about separation of State and Church. Secularism in that sense can never work in India because Hinduism is actually a way of life. Also even if secularism is taken to mean equality of all religions, Article 30(1) in the Constitution states, “All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice”—a right that has not been extended to the majority community. Similarly, in spite of guaranteeing different religious denominations the freedom to manage their religious affairs under Article 26, the State regularly takes over Hindu temples, charitable trusts and their property under different pretexts. This is not the case with corresponding shrines, trusts etc., belonging to the minority communities.
Worse, in reality, secularism has come to mean both discrediting the Indic heritage in the name of modernism and practising minority appeasement for the sake of vote bank politics. Hence, Tipu Sultan is a secular hero because he fought the British, but his atrocities on those he conquered must be whitewashed out of both textbooks and collective memory to stop the rise of “communalism”. In fact, certain governments went to the ridiculous extent of dreaming up a bogey of “Hindu terror” just to strike a “balance” with another community. In the process, political discourse got divided into the simplistic binary of secular and communal. This is a great disservice even to the vibrant political scenario of this country. India is not secular—as in, believing in the equality of all religions—because the Constitution says so. “Secularism” is in India’s veins and will continue to thrive even if it is removed from the Constitution. As for socialism, in this age of market economy, socialism is an anachronism—something from the Jurassic age, which if discarded will send a strong message to the world that India is committed to do business, although even now, the natural instinct of the State is to control—a very socialist trait. In a nutshell, the time has come at least to start a debate on whether or not these two words should be part of the Indian Constitution.
