PLAYING WITH PREAMBLE

If this is an over-planned, strategically designed precision strike to take the nation in a new direction, it doesn’t speak well of the concerns and priorities of the ruling alliance

- Jagdish Rattanani

It would be incorrect to categorise the coordinated RSS-BJP attack on the words “secular” and “socialist” in the preamble of the Constitution as a “debate” in the India of today.

This is a thought-through and raked-up agenda that does not serve the nation or indeed the RSS-BJP. In fact, it only serves to confirm widespread fears that the combine is looking for newer ways to play with the basic structure of the Constitution, further adding weight to the view long propagated that the RSS never really accepted Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution. It is also a reminder of the failed “chaar sau paar” campaign that curtailed the BJP amid fears that the three-fourths majority it sought in the general elections of 2024 was to have the numbers to tamper with the Constitution and change its character. If that goal continues to this day, it only speaks of the fixedness of a divisive agenda that cannot be concealed by the attempted cleverness in citing the Emergency to write down or erase “socialist” and “secular” from the Constitution.