I&B’s Secular Omission

If print advertisements published by the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry on Republic Day are to be believed, then the people of the country no longer need to solemnly resolve to keep India “secular”.

The I&B ministry wished us a happy Republic Day yesterday. It did so through various half-page advertisements in English and Hindi newspapers that carried a message – every newspaper had a different ad – by the Prime Minister himself.  All the ads, though, had a common feature – the background carried a watermark of the Preamble to the Constitution of India.

Now, the last time we checked this is what the first line of the Preamble to our Constitution reads:

“We, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN, SOCIALIST, SECULAR, DEMOCRATIC, REPUBLIC and to secure all its citizens.”

The Preamble that features in the I & B Ministry’s ads, however, reads differently, without the words “secular” and “socialist”. Two important words. While the relevance of the latter can be debated in current economic times with governance models the world over no longer being “ism” or “ist” oriented, the former is central to the nation as envisioned by those who fought for and consolidated India. Both these words are curiously (and conspicuously) missing in the I & B ministry’s version of the Preamble.

Genuine oversight?

Our multiple calls to the I & B Ministry was an exercise in futility, and we kept getting redirected to a slew of similar sounding numbers.

Meanwhile, since we failed to get any official response from the ministry, which published the ad, it would be speculative to substantiate any motive behind the move. To give the government the benefit of doubt, it may have just used the original version of the Preamble for purely aesthetic purposes, in which case, it is not illegal to do so. However, a statement from the ministry is more than due to set the record straight. Given that the ministry is representative of the country and the government, it could have been more careful. At a time where optics and symbolic gestures have become key strategies of the Modi government to communicate its agenda, the omission of the word “secular” in a government ad does not seem bright. It would be interesting to see if R-day ads carrying the Preamble under the United Progressive Alliance also carried such omissions.

The words “secular”, “socialist” and “integrity” were added to the Preamble in 1976 by the then government, through the 42^nd Amendment Act. Secular and socialist were added to substitute the line “…sovereign democratic republic…” to “…sovereign socialist secular democratic republic… .”

While the word integrity was added to change the line “…assuring the unity of the nation” to make it “…assuring the unity and integrity of the nation… .”

The current Preamble includes these words and in case a government wants to remove or add anything new to the Preamble, it would have to go through the route of a Constitutional amendment under Article 368. The amendment can only be effected if the government manages to achieve a special majority — both the Houses should pass it with more than 50 per cent of total number of members along with two-thirds of members present and voting.

Thus, the government to amend the Constitution or the Preamble has to follow due procedure and not do so on a whim or an ad. “This is totally wrong. The government should apologise and print a new ad with the correct Preamble. They cannot remove words that are part of the basic structure now without a Constitutional amendment,” said Colin Gonsalves, founder of Human Rights Law Network and senior advocate. He added that it is unthinkable for the government to remove a word like “socialist”, which essentially implies to establishing a pro-people and pro-poor democracy.

“Legal or not, it is immoral. The Preamble to the Constitution is a sacred document and can’t be quoted in parts,” said Jagdeep Chhokar, founder member, National Election Watch, Association of Democratic Reform. The website Indiaresists has carried a petition to condemn the “mischievous” advertisement.

The story will be updated as soon as we hear from the I&B ministry.

(With inputs from Manisha Pande)