Needless Debate On Preamble

Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s support for RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale’s call to remove the words “socialist”, “secular”, and “integrity” from the Preamble of the Constitution is not surprising. This idea has long been nurtured by sections of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. Their core argument is that these words were inserted during the Emergency by the Indira Gandhi government and are, therefore, undemocratic and illegitimate. What they conveniently ignore is that the Janata Party government, which replaced the Emergency regime in 1977, thoroughly reviewed all Emergency-era decisions. It even brought in the landmark 44th Amendment, which removed “internal disturbance” as a ground for imposing Emergency and made the right to life and liberty non-suspendable. That government, which included BJP stalwarts like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, made no move to delete these terms from the Preamble. Clearly, it did not see any problem with them.

In the decades since, several non-Congress leaders—including Vajpayee, Charan Singh, Chandra Shekhar, V.P. Singh, I.K. Gujral, H.D. Deve Gowda, and Narendra Modi—have served as Prime Minister. None of them raised objections to the amended Preamble. If Modi, now in his third term, truly believed the Preamble needed restoration to its 1950 version, he had ample time and a parliamentary majority to act. He didn’t, because he did not find any need for it. What makes the renewed demand appear disingenuous is the historical position of the Sangh Parivar. The RSS, which now champions Ambedkar and the “original” Preamble, had once rejected the very Constitution he helped draft. It preferred the Manusmriti as the guiding text for Indian governance and refused even to hoist the national flag. Their sudden reverence for Ambedkar and the Constitution that has his stamp seems driven more by political convenience than conviction.

The amended Preamble has stood legal and democratic scrutiny for nearly five decades. Parliament rejected a private member’s Bill, introduced by BJP MP K.J. Alphons, that sought to roll back the Emergency-era additions. In the Indian context, secularism means equal respect for all faiths. There is no faith which is superior or inferior, unlike in the West, where religion is kept away from the state. In other words, secularism in India is quite distinct. Similarly, socialism means ensuring that the interests of the poor and marginalised are not trampled upon by the powerful. That is why Mahatma Gandhi asked all decision-makers to consider how their decisions would impact the poorest of the poor before taking them. “Integrity” reinforces unity by emphasising moral commitment to the nation. These values are not foreign impositions but echo the spirit of India’s civilisational ethos. At a time when the country is grappling with rising prices, joblessness, and inequality, revisiting the Preamble seems more like a political distraction than a genuine constitutional concern.