Inserting ‘secular’ in the preamble - a farcical signal

As originally enacted the preamble to her constitution described India as a "sovereign democratic republic", to which the terms "Secular" and "Socialist" were later added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976. The preamble has been amended only once so far.

On 18 December 1976, during the Emergency in India, the Indira Gandhi government pushed through several changes in the Forty-second Amendment of the constitution. Through this amendment, the words "Socialist" and "Secular" were added between the words "Sovereign" and "Democratic" and the words "unity of the Nation" were changed to "unity and integrity of the Nation"

While many Indians had been victims of atrocities by the government of the day during the 21-month period from 1975 to 1977 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had a state of emergency declared across the country, the citizens, who suffered the most on account of their religious faith, were the Muslims.

Officially issued by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed under Article 352 of the Constitution because of the prevailing "internal disturbance", the Emergency was in effect from 25 June 1975 until its withdrawal on 21 March 1977. The order bestowed upon the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi the authority to rule by decree, allowing elections to be suspended and civil liberties to be curbed. Invoking article 352 of the Indian Constitution, Gandhi granted herself extraordinary powers and launched a massive crackdown on civil liberties and political opposition. The Government used police forces across the country to place thousands of protestors and strike leaders under preventive detention. For much of the Emergency, most of Gandhi's political opponents were imprisoned and the press was censored. Several other human rights violations were reported from the time, including a forced mass-sterilization campaign spearheaded by Sanjay Gandhi, the Prime Minister's son.

Indira Gandhi's government, prompted by her son Sanjay, launched the demolition drive to cleanse Delhi of slums and force poor residents to leave Delhi and move to distant settlements. The residents of Turkman Gate, mostly Muslims, refused to move as they would have to commute every day paying heavy bus fares to reach the city to earn their living. They resisted the bulldozing of their houses. On 18 April 1976, the police opened fire on protesters killing several of them. The government, who had earlier imposed censorship, ordered the newspapers not to report the massacre. Indian public came to know about killings through foreign media like BBC. It was later reported that protesting people were ran over by bulldozers, resulting in several deaths

In September 1976, Sanjay Gandhi initiated a widespread compulsory sterilization programme to limit population growth. Rukhsana Sultana was a socialite known for being one of Sanjay Gandhi's close associates and she gained a lot of notoriety in leading Sanjay Gandhi's sterilisation campaign in Muslim areas of old Delhi. The campaign primarily involved getting males to undergo vasectomy. Quotas were set up that enthusiastic supporters and government officials worked hard to achieve. There were allegations of coercion of unwilling candidates too. In 1976–1977, the programme led to 8.3 million sterilisations, most of them forced, up from 2.7 million the previous year.

In the growing public anger against the emergency, forced sterilisations generated a strong anti-Sanjay sentiment among the people in general. This sentiment was much stronger among Muslims because of their perception of being targeted for such forced sterilisations due to their faith. Sanjay Gandhi was the first Hindu politician, son of an authoritarian Prime Minister from Congress, who targeted Muslims through a forced social-engineering project of the government. Indira Gandhi government had indeed acted in a non-secular way.

So, nearly 18 months after she had promulgated an “internal emergency,” what did Indira Gandhi mean, when in 1976, she said that she wanted India to be "secular?"

Indira Gandhi was only speaking “symbolically,” not about shifting from a non-secular state and governance to a secular state and governance, but merely sending out a political signal to very angry Indian Muslim.

The concept of India being secular, in the opinion of Indira Gandhi and her Government was symbolic of the political demand for a backing-off from the focus, for reasons of their faith and customs, on Muslims in the area of population control.

Thus, when Indira Gandhi said she wanted India to be “Secular,” she was not saying that thus far India had been non-secular nor was she speaking about instituting a new governance and state system, but merely sending out signals of comfort towards the Indian Muslims.

One could also say that “India is secular” is an empty phrase. The government is not concerned with any actual equality and uniformity in dealing with her subjects, but with more affirmative support in favour of non-Hindus.

Why would Indira Gandhi even start talking about a Secular India? Actually, there was no real debate about secularism in India; and everyone with the slightest political knowledge knows that it is a political propaganda and not least for constitutional reasons.

The incidences of non-secular actions by the governments after the inclusion of the word “secular” in the preamble have only gone up. Some of the biggest embarrassments in recent years include, Shah Bano case, Triple Talaaq, Muslim Personal Law, forced entry into Sabarimala Hindu Temple and so on.

Politics of minority appeasement has all along been driven for the purpose of vote-consolidation much to the detriment of all ideals of secularism. Once the politicians began to notice majority alienation due to such skewed policies, they tried to change the narrative of public discourse such that any favourable bias towards the consolidating minority vote-banks became a moral and social correctness while any complaint of even the consequential unfavourable bias towards the majority became non-secular and taboo. Apparently the truth about secular politics, secular governments and secular nation is so bad that the public should not be allowed to know about it.

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