Critics of India’s secular ethos — a burgeoning tribe these days — often point to a particular occurrence to buttress their argument that secularism is not quite organic to the republic’s constitutional vision. The insertion of the terms, ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’, in the Preamble brought about by the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution during the Emergency is usually cited as the principal bone of contention. No less than the current vice-president, Jagdeep Dhankhar, referred to this act as sacrilegious, that too to the ‘spirit of sanatan’. Earlier, Dattatreya Hosabale of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had also made a similar observation. What the adversaries of a pluralist India cleverly omit is the fact that secularism has always been one of the pillars on which stands the edifice of this nation. A perusal of constitutional provisions and legal judgments would make this clear. For instance, Article 25 gives Indian citizens the right to freely profess and practise a faith of their choice; the Preamble also proffers fidelity to the principles of justice, equality, liberty and fraternity. None of this would have been possible had secularism not been integral to the constitutional scheme. Judgments by India’s highest court have also made it evident — repeatedly — that secularism is central to the nation’s tryst with destiny. In its ruling in Kesavananda Bharati vs the State of Kerala, the apex court held that the Constitution’s basic structure includes secularism. Subsequent pleas to delete ‘secularism’ and ‘socialism’ from the Preamble have been junked by the Supreme Court, which referred to the specific character of Indian secularism.
What is undeniable is that despite the clarity on the ties between secularism and the republic, periodic attempts to muddy the waters continue. These appear to have sanctions from the highest echelons of power. The holders of constitutional office in a secular country questioning secularism’s embedded nature in the nation’s body politic thus needs to be seen as a continuum that also features other kinds of assault on India’s inclusive social fabric: these include the State’s corralling of inter-faith unions, rhetorical demonisation of as well as physical attacks on minorities and economic boycotts of such communities, among other problematic interventions. The challenge for India and Indians is to institute a fresh — collective — charter of commitment to the secular ethic. This new charter should emphasise on spreading secularism’s message to every tier of Indian society, thereby liberating it from the trappings of an ideal and turning it into a part of the republic’s praxis.