Opinion Secularism isn’t just a word. It’s at the heart of India and its Constitution

The word “secular” was included in the Preamble of India’s Constitution through a process that was patently undemocratic. It was 1976, the Emergency was in place, many Opposition leaders had been jailed, there was a clampdown by the Indira Gandhi government on fundamental freedoms and imposition of press censorship. The 42nd Amendment Act made many other changes that were wide-ranging and controversial — curtailing rights, whittling down the Court’s power of judicial review, giving Parliament unrestrained powers to amend any part of the Constitution, transferring powers from the states to the Centre, eroding the federal structure. So yes, the introduction of the word “secular” in the Constitution’s Preamble — now the centre of a controversy after senior members of the BJP-led establishment have urged that it be removed (along with “socialist”, but the latter word is not their real target) — did not take place in happy circumstances. And yet, having said that, “secular” was not deleted from the Preamble, and its inclusion has been upheld by the Court, even though other changes made by the 42nd Amendment were subsequently undone, because it belongs in the Constitution, fundamentally and inalienably. As the Supreme Court said in its landmark ruling in the Kesavananda Bharati case in 1973, secularism is a part of the Constitution’s basic structure. And, more recently, last year, the Court, hearing a plea to delete these words, found no reason to do so, underlining that India has “developed its own interpretation of secularism”.

The word secular may have been formally added by the 42nd Amendment, but secularism was already writ into the Constitution of this diverse country. It is there in Article 25’s guarantee of the freedom of conscience, to profess, practise and propagate religion to all citizens. It inheres also in the Preamble’s emphasis on Justice, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity — in a multi-religious context, these values are incomplete without a commitment to Secularism. That is not to say that India’s secularism has not been debated extensively, or that it will not continue to be discussed. In an argumentative democracy, where secularism has acquired distinctly Indian characteristics — no hard lines are drawn between Church and State, there is no banishment of religion from public view, the state accords equal respect to all religions —there will be attempts to redefine what it means, and to shift its centre of gravity. Such attempts have picked up pace and force since the BJP came to power with a majority in 2014. The Narendra Modi government, now in its third term, presides over attempts to mount a more concerted challenge to the secular common sense than before — from anti-conversion laws and mandatory state clearances for inter-faith marriages in BJP-ruled states to state patronage of expressions of Hindu religiosity, from the PM himself taking the lead in rituals of consecration of a temple in Ayodhya to attempts to conflate the ideas of Rashtra and Ram.

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At the same time, the government’s refrain is “sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas” and “vasudhaiva kutumbakam”. In that lies hope for a pluralist, rights-respecting and inclusive democracy. The hope is that any homogenising political project will come up against its limits. That, regardless of the faith of those who rule, no government will be able to change the way this nation defines itself and holds itself together. India is secular and will remain so, the constitutional guardrails will hold. The word “secularism” in the Preamble, therefore, is not just a word. It’s an article of faith.