CM calls to remove ‘secular' & ‘socialist' from Preamble
Guwahati: CM
Himanta Biswa Sarma
on Saturday said the state govt will request the Centre to delete the words "socialist" and "secular" from the Preamble of the Constitution as "these words are legacies of the Emergency" and those represent the Western concept contrary to Indian thought.
The original Preamble, adopted on Nov 26, 1949, declared India as a "Sovereign Democratic Republic". The words "socialist" and "secular" were added through the 42nd Constitutional Amendment during the Emergency in 1976.
During an event at BJP headquarters in Guwahati, after launching a book on Emergency, "The Emergency Diary" — a collection of first-person anecdotes from associates who worked with Narendra Modi during his time as an RSS pracharak — Sarma said it was not a result of any national or international crisis but a calculated political conspiracy by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi solely to protect her position.
He emphasised that Indira Gandhi not only violated democratic principles but also undermined the very spirit of the Constitution by amending its Preamble, inserting the words 'socialist' and 'secular'.
"The word secularism is not conceived in Indian context. Our concept is Sarva Dharma Sambhav — equal respect for all religions which is not neutral but positively aligned. We are a spiritual nation. The West concept is neutral.
If we are neutral we cannot work for satras, temples and namghars. We cannot discuss Gita or the Vedas," he said.
He added, "How can Himanta Biswa Sarma be secular? I am a hardcore Hindu. Smillary, how can a Muslim person be secular. He is a hardcore Muslim person."
Sarma further said similarly socialism was never the economic concept of India. "Our concept was always antodoya (uplift of the marginalised) and sarvodaya (welfare of all).
Therefore, the Government of India must remove the words 'socialist' and 'secular' from the Preamble and restore it to its original form as envisioned by the Constitution's architects, including Dr BR Ambedkar," Sarma said.
"The way Prime Minister Narendra Modi is working to wipe out the legacy of colonial India, the same way we should try to wipe out the legacy of Emergency. Two important legacy of the emergency is insertion of the word secular and socialist in our constitution, which should be deleted," he said.
Sarma said the Emergency remains a grim reminder of how fragile democracy can become if power is abused and stressed that such circumstances must never be allowed to recur in the future.
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