The need to protect the sanctity of the Preamble

Why apex court's ruling on the amendment of the Constitution during the Emergency to include secularism and socialism in the Preamble sets off mixed feelings

- Gopalkrishna Gandhi

The new Chief Justice of India (CJI), Justice Sanjiv Khanna, with Justice Sanjay Kumar joining him on the two-judge bench in the Preamble case, has made a valuable pronouncement (November 25, 2024). The inclusion of the words, "secular" and "socialist", by the 42nd amendment to the Constitution of India moved by Indira Gandhi's government in 1976 during the high noon of the Emergency, had been challenged some years ago. And after seeing many arguments advanced for and against, and many sittings, the CJI pronounced the amendment and the inclusion valid, not calling for any change.

Many millions among my fellow citizens cherish these two adjectives, these two concepts. They hold them to be foundational to India's plural personality and its egalitarian ideals. Many millions among India's population do not share that view. They are unenthused by secularism, holding it to be anti-God generally and anti-Hindu in particular. They are indifferent to socialism, regarding it as an abstract philosophy that has not helped reduce poverty in general, and unemployment-related poverty in particular. I belong to the first set of millions rather breezily described as 'Left-liberals' and am disturbed by the second set dubbed as "Right-wing majoritarians".

And so, I am relieved by Justice Khanna's order. Paradoxically, my relief does not come from the fact that these two words in the Preamble have been protected from excision. I believe they need not have been put there, more than 25 years after the Preamble had been adopted with the rest of the Constitution with no one in the first four elected Lok Sabhas and the Rajya Sabha, with outstanding secular socialist leaders, having missed them there. The Constitution was sufficiently secular in spirit and socialist in direction without the Preamble saying that in as many words.