Fraudulent Secularisation of Indian Constitution – Ram Kumar Ohri, IPS (Retd)

india map Fraudulent Secularisation of Indian Constitution

           Insertion of word ‘Secular’ in Indian Consitution on the Sly 

–           Ram Kumar Ohri, IPS (Retd)

          It is astounding that Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, is being pilloried by our partisan media and  secular chatterati  largely consisting of  ignorant WOGS  (i.e., West Oriented Gentlemen) and their fellow travellers.  She has been targeted for suggesting that the Bhagwad Gita should be declared as Rashtriya Granth, or the  national book of  India.  Prima facie there is nothing wrong in the suggestion made by the euridite lady.  After all, Gita is the soul of the millennia old Indian civilization. It is the  song celestial sung by Sri Krishna to awaken and invigorate a faltering Arjuna in the battlefield at Kurukshetra. 

          It is  being argued by some inadequately-read  self-styled intellectuals and media mandarins that since our Constitutioin describes India is a ’secular’ nation, a religious book of Hindus,  like Bhagwad Gita,  cannot be designated as our national book.  Ah, secularism !   But who forced  the bogey called secularism into our Constitution ?

          Time has come to inform the comatose Hindu leaders and our slumbering masses about  the forgotten  truth that the word, ‘secular’, did not exist in the original text  of  the Indian Constitution when it was adopted in  November, 1950. The founding fathers   did not, repeat did not, describe India as a secular nation  despite compulsive obsession of  Pandit Nehru with this dogmatic western cult  which is frequently pitted against ‘ dharma’.   Equally important is  for us to remember that  there  was no mention of the word ‘socialist’  in the original  text of Indian Constitution.   A massive  deception  practiced by the unconstitutional  political rulers in 1977 was that the word  ‘secular’ was foisted  by late Indira Gandhi on the  gullible Indian mass on the sly during the dark era of Emergency.

Why was it done during the years of Emergency when all rights of the citizens had been suspended and press too, was totally gagged ?   No one knows, no one can explain.  The  questionable   word was forced into the Preamble   in a clumsy bid to consolidate the minority votebank  in 1977   by  the then Prime Minister and her kitchen cabinet.   She  added two mischievous  words into  the Preamble of the Constitution thereby converting India into a  ‘socialist and secular’  Republic.    Perpetrated during the Emergency it was a fraud of monumental proportions.

          This unwarranted intrustion into the Constitution was made  through the 42nd amendment in 1977 when  democracy was dead,  voice of  the people was  muzzled and  fundamental rights had been suspended. The Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India, officially known as The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, was enacted during the Emergency by  the  government headed by Indira Gandhi.  Most provisions of the amendment came into effect on 3 January 1977,  while  some other changes were enforced with effect from February 1, 1977.1 

           As highlighted on  the website of Wikipedia, the  “42nd amendment  is regarded as the most controversial constitutional amendment in Indian history. It attempted to reduce the power of the Supreme Court and High Courts to pronounce upon the constitutional validity of laws.  It laid down the Fundamental Duties of Indian citizens to the nation. This amendment brought about the most widespread changes to the Constitution in its history, and is sometimes called a “mini-Constitution”  or  the ‘Constitution of  Indira’.2  Almost all parts of the Constitution, including the  Preamble  and the amending clause, were changed by the 42nd Amendment, and some new articles and sections were inserted. The amendment’s fifty-nine clauses stripped the Supreme Court of many of its powers.  Additionally, the amendments curtailed the democratic rights in the country, and gave sweeping  powers to the then Prime Minister.

          Among other things, the controversial  amendment  gave to the  Parliament  unrestrained power to amend any parts of the Constitution, without judicial review. It transferred more power from the state governments to the central government, eroding India’s federal structure. The 42nd Amendment also amended the Preamble and changed the description of India from “sovereigndemocratic republic” to a “sovereign socialist  secular  republic”  which was never the intention of the founding fathers when they drafted and passed the Constitution.

          The Emergency era had been widely unpopular. But the  most controversial misconduct  was  the clampdown on civil liberties.  The Janata Party which had promised to “restore the Constitution to its original  condition as it was before the Emergency”, won the 1977 general elections. They  then  brought  about  the  43rd and 44th amendments in 1977 and 1978 respectively, to restore the pre-1976 position to some extent. However, the Janata Party was unable to  achieve its full objective because the government could not last long enough due to  internal squabbles between party’s leadership.

          On 31 July, 1980, in its judgement on Minerva Mills v. Union of India, the Supreme Court declared two provisions of the 42nd Amendment which prevented any constitutional amendment from being “called in question in any Court  on any ground”, and accord precedence to the Directive Principles of State Policy over the Fundamental Rights respectively, were  declared unconstitutional.   That  historic  judgement  of  the  Supreme Court was tantamount   to legal censure of the conduct of the government led by late Indira Gandhi in turning India into a secular State.

          It needs to be understood that in their infinite wisdom the founding fathers did not add the word ‘secular’, nor the word socialist  in the Preamble of Indian Constitution.  They knew that a Hindu-majority nation,  supremely believing in tolerance,  can never become a theocracy.   History is a witness to the fact that  our forefathers had magnanimously  given asylum to  the Parsis as well as the Jews when they were forced  to run away after being persecuted in their own homelands. The founding fathers  knew very well that according to our holy scriptures and millennia- old historical tradition  Hinduism can never become a narrow sectarian faith.

When the Parsis and the Jews were being hounded out from their native lands, it was the Hindu rulers who gave them  shelter  –  and that too, without imposing any pre-conditions.  That is why the founding fathers of the Constitution  did not declare India a secular State in the year 1950.  On the contrary  in spite of Pandit Nehru,  they boldly  affirmed the Hindu identity of  India by incorporating 20 paintings from our ancient history to embellish the hand-written first copy of the Indian Constitution. 

          The  twenty paintings displayed in  the Constitution constitute clear reiteration  of  India’s ancient heritage and  its Hindu identity  by the founding fathers. First and foremost, the paintings depicted Lanka Vijay by Shri Ram, Gita Updesh to Arjuna at Kurukshetra by Karamyogi Krishna, Ganga Anayan by Bhagirath and portraits of  Raja Vikramaditya, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Chhatrapati Shivaji, Guru Gobind Singh and Rani Lakshmibai  of  Jhansi. There is a painting of the  Nalanda University, too. In addition paintings of Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the two 20th century icons of India’s freedom movement, are also there.3  

          There is also one painting  each of  Moghul king Akbar and Tipu Sultan of Mysore in the Constituton.  But these two paintings  could not be construed  by any means as the Constiuent Assembly’s endeavour  to erase the Hindu identity of India. The clumsy attempt to belittle  the Hindu identity of India,   presently  writ large all over the original Indian Constitution,  is a later day development carried out on the sly during the notorious years of Emergency by adding the word “secular” to the Preamble.  Prima facie there are reasons to believe that  a nefarious thought was occupying the mind of  by the ruling  sham-secularist gang and pro-left academia to conceal the truth from the future generations  of  India. At one time,  it was a hush-hush  rumour in the gossip bazaar of  Lutyen’s  New Delhi   that an attempt was being made to remove  these 20  important paintings from the Constitution.  But that was not done, could not be done. Perhaps the enormity of the proposed insult to the  Indian Constitution and the  fear of Hindu backlash did not allow the leftist seculars to venture ahead on that path. 

          Today’s youngsters do not know that the calligraphy of the hand-written copy of Indian Constitution was done by Prem Behari Narain Raina and it was embellished by Nandlal Bose and some  other artists. The hand-written Constitution was photo-lithographed at the Survey of India Office. Apparently, most journalists and tele-media analysts, too are  are unaware of these  facts.

          The aforesaid 20 paintings can be seen at the website Slide Share:http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/30459044.

          It is time that the present and future generations of India are made aware of the fact that the founding fathers never wanted India to be declared a ‘secular’ State.   Nor did they  consider it necessary to make India  a ‘socialist’ State. This important fact stands conclusively proved  by the  depiction of  20 paintings of  the glorious Hindu heritage and landmark ethos of our country permanently embedded  in the original hand-written copy of the  Indian Constitution. It was done ostensibly for the benefit of the posterity.   

          Time has come for Hindu nationalists to confront the morbid rants  of the  secularist ignoramuses by repetitively asserting  that India was  meant to be a secular State by the founding fathers !  In wisdom and strategic foresight the founding fathers  of the Indian Constitution were  much more far-sighted than Indira Gandhi and her atheist father, Pandit Nehru.  

                    Logically  the above mentioned amendments to the Constitution should have been rescinded immediately after the Emergency was over.  But  the governments led  by  Morarji Desai  and Chaudhry Charan Singh could not complete the task due to internecine warfare in the Janta Dal. Now with the fresh winds of reawakening  of national pride blowing across India, time has come to expunge the questionable  words secular and socialist from the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.  Most European countries have turned their backs on the suicidal cult of multi-culturalism which threatens to erase  the Christian identity of Europe.  

          Time has come to excise this monstrosity fom our Constitution.

                                                   ************

References:

  1.  Source: Wikipedia, the international encyclopedia.           
  2.  Ibid.
  3. Source :  The World Digital Library and the website of  Indian Kanoon.

 

Copyright  @ Ram Kumar Ohri

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