RSS journal quotes Ambedkar to question ‘secular’, ‘socialist’ words in Constitution

RSS journal Organiser on Monday cited BR Ambedkar's opposition to amendments suggesting insertion of words "secular” and “socialist" to the Constitution. It said that late Indira Gandhi made these additions to secure power during Emergency and to perpetrate dynastic rule.

Advertisement

Days after RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale called for a review of the two words in the Preamble, Sangh mouthpiece Organiser today quoted verbatim from Parliamentary debates to argue that the Constitution of Babasaheb Ambedkar did not feature the two words.

Recalling the debates on the draft Constitution, Organiser spoke of how while deliberating on the political formation of India ingrained in Article 1 of the Constitution, KT Shah, a member of the Assembly with socialist leaning moved one amendment to the Article.

This Amendment said, "India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states. India shall be a secular, federal, socialist union of states."

Opposing this amendment, Dr Ambedkar, as revealed by Constituent assembly debates, said, "Sir, I regret that I cannot accept the amendment of professor KT Shah. My objections are two. In the first place, the Constitution as I stated in my opening speech in support of the motion, is merely a mechanism for the purpose of regulating the work of the various organs of the state. It is not a mechanism whereby particular members or particular parties are installed in office."

Ambedkar went on to add: "What should be policy of the state, how society should be organised in its social and economic site are matters, which must be decided by the people themselves, according to time and circumstances. This cannot be laid down in the Constitution itself because that is destroying democracy altogether."

The father of the Constitution argued that if you state in the Constitution that the social organisation of the state shall take a particular form, you are taking away the liberty of the people to decide what should be the social organisation in which they wish to live.

"It is perfectly possible today for the majority of people to hold that the socialist organisation of society is better than the capitalist organisation. But it would be perfectly possible for people to devise some other form of social organisation which might be better than the social organisation of today or of tomorrow. I do not see why the Constitution should tie down the people to live in a particular form and not leave it to the people to decide for themselves. This is one reason why the amendment should be opposed," Ambedkar said.

The RSS journal defending the demands to review the two words said that instead of recognising personal dictatorial ambitions of Indira Gandhi as the root cause of Emergency, an attempt was being made to divert the blame to Jayaprakash Narayan and RSS. It further attacked regional parties like SP and RJD for standing with the Congress despite "emerging from the struggle against the Emergency."

The Organiser also slammed Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge's son Priyank Kharge for his recent claim that the Congress, if re-elected, would ban the RSS.

"Regional dynastic parties whose leadership emerged from the struggle against the Emergency are today sitting in the Congress’ lap and are happy to run against RSS. The worst came from another emerging dynastic politician (read Priyank), whose father is still waiting to take instructions from the first family, who made another undemocratic announcement of banning RSS, if ever Congress returns to power. Ironically, whenever Congress had to strangulate the spirit of the Constitution, RSS became its favourite target," the journal said, adding that when Hosabale spoke about the insertion of secularism and socialism to the Preamble during the Emergency, he was exposing "the Congress and its allies' hypocrisy."