THE Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) General Secretary and second-in-command in the organisation’s hierarchy, Dattatray Hosabale, recently averred that the words ‘secularism’ and ‘socialism’ were inserted in the preamble of the country’s Constitution during the 1975-77 Emergency. He further stated that since these words were not there in the original preamble of the Constitution drafted by Dr BR Ambedkar, they ought to be removed.
This is not the first time that such a demand has been raised by Hindutva quarters. On the Republic Day in January 2015, the BJP government, which assumed power in 2014, issued an advertisement with the picture of the preamble, in which these words were missing. The government employed the same pretext that the words were not in the one released in November 1949. An acrimonious debate ensued, and a case was filed in the courts demanding the deletion of these words from the present Constitution.
Multiple petitions were filed on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the Constitution on November 25, 2024, in this regard, but the Supreme Court rejected all of them. The justices held that the addition of these terms could not be objected to just on the ground that the original preamble did not contain them at the time when the Constitution was adopted.
Not just these two values, the Sanghis are against the Constitution as a whole. During Constituent Assembly debates, several leaders had shown apprehension that secularism would be undermined, and there was a need to guard this to the utmost. As a representative sample, what Sardar Patel stated needs to be recalled: “I made it clear that this Constitution of India, of free India, of a secular State will not hereafter be disfigured by any provision on a communal basis.”
As per the Constitution, Hosabale’s argument is on a weak wicket as its very provisions spell these words. The fundamental rights enshrined in Article 25 deal with the freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion. In this very article, the word “secular” is mentioned under Clause (2)(a).
The BJP, due to electoral compulsions, speaks in many tongues. It began with Gandhian Socialism, which was dumped in 1985 in favour of caste hierarchy-based ‘integral humanism’. In the BJP’s Constitution of 2012, it stated its objective as aiming for a party which “…shall bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established and to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy and would uphold the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.”
The core agenda of RSS-BJP is to strive for a Hindu Nation (Rashtra) where the Manusmriti will be the guiding principle. Right after the Indian Constitution was implemented on 26th January 1950, RSS mouthpiece Organiser came out with an editorial piece heavily criticising the Constitution. It stated on 30th November 1949, “The worst [thing] about the new Constitution of Bharat is that there is nothing Bhartiya about it… [T]here is no trace of ancient Bhartiya constitutional laws, institutions, nomenclature and phraseology in it”. Meaning that Manusmriti has been ignored by the makers of the Indian Constitution!
At the same time, the ideologue of Hindu nationalism VD Savarkar, stated that “Manusmriti is that scripture which is most worshippable after Vedas for our Hindu Nation and which from ancient times has become the basis of our culture, customs, thought and practice. This book, for centuries, has codified the spiritual and divine march of our nation. Even today, the rules that are followed by crores of Hindus in their lives and practice are based on Manusmriti. Today Manusmriti is Hindu Law. That is fundamental. [VD Savarkar, ‘Women in Manusmriti’ in Savarkar Samgra (collection of Savarkar’s writings in Hindi), Prabhat, Delhi, vol. 4, p. 415.]
In the 1990s, three major actions again showed the deeper and real affinity and goal of the Hindu Nation. In 1993, Rajju Bhaiyya, the then RSS Sarsanghchalak, stated that “Official documents refer to the composite culture, but ours is certainly not a composite culture… this country has a unique cultural oneness. No country, if it has to survive, can have compartments. All this shows that changes are needed in the Constitution. A Constitution more suited to the ethos and genius of this country should be adopted in the future.”
In 1998, the BJP-led NDA assumed power at the Centre. One of the major things it did was to appoint the Venkatachaliah Commission to review the Constitution, claiming that it had become old and needed revision. The Commission did submit its report, but there was huge opposition to it, and so the recommendation for its implementation was put in the freezer.
Undeterred by all this, in the year 2000, when K Sudarshan became the RSS Sarsanghchalak, he stated that the Indian Constitution was based on Western values; it should be scrapped and replaced by one based on Hindu holy books (i.e. Manusmriti).
Many BJP leaders kept chanting this mantra off and on. Anant Kumar Hegde of Karnataka said that the party was in power precisely for changing the Constitution. In light of the 400 par (beyond 400 parliament seats) slogan of the BJP, many of their leaders reiterated that they need this many seats so that they can achieve their goal of changing the Constitution.
The BJP’s tactical flexibility was on display when Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that even if Babasaheb Ambedkar comes, he can’t change the Constitution. In the backdrop of the 2024 elections, Rahul Gandhi made a major issue around the Constitution by carrying a copy of the statute in his hand. There was no overt opposition from the RSS-BJP camp, and Modi even bowed to a copy of the Constitution.
The RSS-BJP strategy is multipronged, to try to tamper with the Constitution by various steps and at the same time to adopt the policies to bypass the ethos of the Constitution when in power. That’s what we have been witnessing during the last decade or so. Hosabale’s is a calculated move to test the waters, to march further in the RSS agenda of doing away with the democratic, secular values.
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Ram Puniyani is an eminent author, activist and a former professor at IIT Mumbai. The views expressed here are personal and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them.
