The Indian Constituent Assembly comprising 389 of the best and brightest minds
worked for three years to produce the longest written Constitution in the world. The wise men of the Constituent Assembly debated the inclusion of the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ at length and decided to leave them out of the Preamble. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the
Chairman of the Drafting Committee opined that inclusion of these terms in the Preamble would limit the scope of
democracy.
Ambedkar felt that the democratic
system of governance with its stress on equality for all citizens would ipso facto ensure equal religious
rights. He was of the opinion that the inclusion of the word ‘socialist’ would deprive the people of a
possibly better system of governance than socialism
at a future time. Here was what he had said:
“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 judgement, 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.”(Italics added.)*
It appears Ambedkar was prescient
about the possibility of leaders or political parties using Constitution-tinkering as a political
tool to usurp power. Here was what he had said in his speech:
“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 whereby particular
members or particular parties are installed in office.” (Ibid.
Italics added.)
The Constituent Assembly thereafter rejected a motion to include the
words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ in the Preamble. However, Ambedkar’s prediction about political leaders
using amendments to the Constitution
as political tools did not have long to wait. In less than eighteen months
after the Constitution was adopted on
November 26 1949, Jawaharlal Nehru enacted the first amendment inserting Article 19 (2) to curtail the
fundamental right of freedom of speech. There were other amendments but it was
his daughter Indira Gandhi, who made wholesale changes to the Constitution during the 1975-77 Emergency, she imposed on the nation.
Her 42nd amendment act included the words ‘secular’
and ‘socialist’ in the Preamble. Enacted in 1976, the one
amendment rewrote more than 50 articles and Schedules! With the entire opposition in jail, she did not have to
bother with the nuisance of debate and discussion of the clauses.
Thus, there are three different
meanings to the word ‘secular’. The
first was the original European connotation in which it meant separation the Church and the State. Then there is the connotation as envisaged by the Constituent Assembly and as defined by Ambedkar,
which meant equality of all religions. The third connotation is the political
tool, which the Congress party and
more specifically Indira Gandhi and her successors put to good use for
garnering minority votes. In essence, the use of secularism as a political tool involves appeasing minority vote
banks to queer electoral arithmetic for electoral gains. It has different
connotations in different political contexts. It has one meaning in Hindu majority states and quite a
different meaning in other states where Hindus
are in a minority. By the by Indira Gandhi’s famous Constitutional amendment which inserted the words ‘secular’ and
‘socialist’ in the preamble is yet to be applied in Jammu and Kashmir. The Hindu religious bodies alone are state
controlled and their incomes appropriated by state governments. The Right to
Education Act (RTE) 2009 enjoins public and private educational institutions to
provide free education to students to the extent of 25% of their strength.
However, the RTE act is not applicable to educational institutions run by
minorities.
Excerpted from ‘TWISTING FACTS TO SUIT THEORIES’ & OTHER SELECTIONS FROM VOXINDICA
pp. 126-128
* Debate on November 15, 1948: “Constituent Assembly Of India - Volume
VII”. Accessible from http://goo.gl/21N47W
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