It is Time to Clean Up the Constitution's Obsolete Burdens

Let's have a moment of silence for two dearly departed words still haunting our Constitution: "secular" and "socialist".

- Ravi Shankar

These words were not part of the Constitution that emerged from Nehruvian idealism and Ambedkar's structural genius. They were smuggled in during the 42nd Amendment in 1976 at the height of Indira Gandhi's Emergency, when Parliament was her echo chamber. What should have been the republic's soul became its slogan board, rewritten by a state that had suspended its own conscience. Now RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale says: "Throw them out." The man has a point, but that is not wearing a colour which is a red rag to liberal bulls.

Secularism, we are told, means the state must be neutral towards all religions. It's an outright joke in India.

Let's call it what it is: a code word for vote-bank gymnastics. One party rushes to the nearest dargah, the other wraps itself in saffron.

One performs 'namaz diplomacy,' the other demands Ram Rajya.