Chasing ghosts of Emergency

The noise about secularism and socialism misses the larger damage that the 42nd Amendment did to the Constitution

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A debate is brewing over the insertion of two terms — secular and socialist — into the Preamble of the Constitution during the Emergency. First, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath called it "a brutal assault on the soul of India". A day later, RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said these terms were inserted when "the country had no functioning Parliament, no rights, no judiciary" and asked for a review. Vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar and several BJP leaders have joined the debate — some have described secularism as anti-Sanatana Dharma and a Western concept. The Opposition has criticised these remarks as evidence of the present regime's intent to subvert the Constitution.