OUTRAGE: Masked demonstrators in Delhi blamed Advani and Modi for destroying secularism but the process had begun well before the bloodbath in Gujarat

IT may sound unreal but when the founding fathers bequeathed the Constitution to the people of India in 1950, the term “secular” found only a single casual mention in the document. The reference was to “economic, financial, political or other secular activity” in Article 25(2a) and the usage followed the standard dictionary meaning. It is not that India wasn’t a secular state. There were enough provisions to guarantee freedom from discrimination, the equality of opportunity and the right to profess, practise and propagate faith. But the word “secular” was found to be too loaded. Responding to a demand to describe India as a “secular federal socialist union of states”, the then law minister B.R. Ambedkar said it was inadvisable to prescribe a particular form of social organisation for future generations.

The Guilty

Architects of a Divided State A legacy stretching from Jinnah’s two-nation to Thackeray’s politics of hate M.A. Jinnah The father of the first Islamic state in South Asia started it. His two-nation theory sanctified the irreconciliability of Hindus and Muslims. Indira Gandhi She constitutionally institutionalised secularism, with her politics swinging between secular extremism and religious opportunism. Rajiv Gandhi From the infamous Shah Bano case to Ayodhya shilanyas, he gave secularism a go-by and set the stage for Hindu resurgence. J.S. Bhindranwale India’s first militant face of religious radicalism, almost bin Laden-like, he marked the bloody inauguration of Sikh extremism in Punjab. V.P. Singh The casteist plank of his Mandal movement contributed to the rise of a Hindu constituency in the Hindi heartland. L.K. Advani His famous rath yatra, for the first time, set off the biggest political mobilisation of the Hindus—andBJP’s journey to power. Bal Thackeray The maverick demagogue has perfected the politics of hate, visceral, banal but never failing to evoke fear among the minorities.

That wasn’t how Indira Gandhi perceived it 25 years later. Intoxicated by the Emergency and her dictatorial status, she felt the Constitution to be a political straitjacket. In 1975, the aicc set up a committee headed by Swaran Singh to recommend changes in the Constitution. Simultaneously, she got the Lok Sabha—most of the Opposition was conveniently behind bars—to extend its life by a year. Then, armed with its report, she proceeded to bulldoze the 42nd Amendment through a lame-duck Parliament.

Indira set her target high—at the very Preamble of the Constitution. The words “secular” and “socialist”—both left undefined—were prefixed to the description of India as a “sovereign republic”. The changes were necessary, she told the Lok Sabha, “to restore the health of our democracy”. The Statement of Objects and Reasons declaimed in communist-style language that the amendment was necessary because “vested interests have been trying to promote their selfish ends to the great detriment of public good”.

Constitutional experts felt the changes to the Preamble were unnecessary. In his Shorter Constitution of India, Durga Das Basu argued that the insertion of “secular” was “productive of more mischief than benefit”. Likewise, H.M. Seervai in his Constitutional Law of India argued that the additions “have certain associations which are inconsistent with the enacting provisions of the Constitution”.

Despite these misgivings and the outrageous circumstances of its inclusion, the new “secular” mantra became a holy cow. In 1978, the Janata Party government repealed chunks of the 42nd Amendment. However, it failed to restore the original Preamble. Yet, it tried to inject a definition of “secular”—as “equal respect for all religions”. The Congress would have none of it and the amendment was rejected by the Rajya Sabha where the party had a majority. Consequently, “secular” remains in the Preamble as a political slogan, its meaning nebulous and negotiable, its presence overshadowing a far richer word—fraternity.

That wasn’t the case when the Constitution was drafted. The fundamental divide in an India traumatised by Partition was between communalism and nationalism. Indira Gandhi reduced it to communalism versus secularism. She never won the battle or even engaged the enemy seriously. Her cynical posturing simply ensured that the biggest casualty was nationalism.