Demand to remove ‘secular’, ‘socialist’ from the Preamble uncalled for

AMID the commemoration of 50 years of the Emergency — undoubtedly an indelible blot on our democracy — the RSS has trained its guns on the 42nd Amendment, under which the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ were added to the Preamble to the Constitution. RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale has sought their removal on the grounds that these words were included during the Emergency, “when fundamental rights were suspended, Parliament did not work, judiciary became lame…” The demand conveniently ignores the fact that the Supreme Court settled the matter once and for all last year. Rejecting petitions challenging the two words’ inclusion in the Preamble, the court had affirmed Parliament’s authority to amend the Constitution under Article 368. The SC had also observed that these two terms had been widely accepted, with their meanings clearly understood by “We, the people of India”.