The court’s stance reinforces India’s pluralistic and inclusive governance model, ensuring that all religions coexist peacefully without state interference
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – Questioning the motive of the petitioners seeking removal of “secular” and “socialist” words from the Constitution’s Preamble, the Supreme Court, on Monday, asked them whether they don’t want India to be a secular state.
The petitioners argued for the removal of these terms, claiming they distort India’s original democratic ideals. Among the petitioners is BJP leader and former MP Subramanian Swamy.
The court firmly questioned the motive, stating, “You don’t want India to be secular?” and upheld that secularism is a fundamental feature of the Constitution, forming part of its “basic structure,” which cannot be amended or removed as per the Kesavananda Bharati and SR Bommai rulings, media reports said.
Secularism in India means treating all religions equally and ensuring the state’s impartiality, distinct from Western secularism which separates religion from the state. The court highlighted that the inclusion of “secular” merely made explicit what was already inherent in the Constitution’s philosophy, an NDTV report said.
This case reignited the debate over the 42nd Constitutional Amendment (1976), which added “socialist” and “secular” to the Preamble, aligning the nation’s identity with evolving social and political values.
Despite criticism from some quarters, the court’s stance reinforces India’s pluralistic and inclusive governance model, ensuring that all religions coexist peacefully without state interference.
Arguing before the bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar, petitioner and advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain said the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1976, which affected these changes, was never debated in Parliament, the NDTV report said.
Justice Khanna responded that the matter has been debated at length. “Please see Mr Jain, the words have varied interpretation. Both words have different interpretations today. Even our courts have declared them, time and again, as part of the basic structure (of the Constitution),” he said.
“Socialism can also mean there has to be fair opportunity for all, the concept of equality. Let’s not take it in the Western concept. It can have some different meanings as well. Same with the word secularism,” he added.
According to the report, BJP leader Swamy said the Preamble mentions the date November 26, 1949. “I want to present how this is wrong. This could be somewhere else but not in the Preamble.”
“We can have a Preamble in two parts. It is wrong to say that we the people of India have consented towards the enactment of the words ‘secularism’ and ‘socialist’. There could be two parts of the Preamble, one with the date and one without,” he said.
The court, however, asked the petitioners to submit relevant documents so it could examine them.
Refusing to issue notices, the bench set November 18 as the next date of hearing.
