Former judge K Chandru It is a strange coincidence that both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party adopted the socialist tag in the national conferences they convened at Chennai years apart.

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Case of the non-existent socialist, secular ideas
Aug 31, 2020, 04:18 IST
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By K Chandru
It is a strange coincidence that both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party adopted the socialist tag in the national conferences they convened at Chennai years apart.
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In 1950, the Congress desperately wanted to project an ideological face and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at the All India Congress Committee meeting (1955) at Chennai passed a resolution to form a “socialist pattern of society”. Asked for a precise definition, Nehru said it was to have a welfare state.
At that time, C N Annadurai wrote in the DMK organ: “Like paper roses having no fragrance, the Congress socialism will have no flavour”. The Congress did not mind these repartees, but waited for opportunities to amend laws by which it could arm-twist other parties.

The DMK, which defeated the Congress and formed a government in Tamil Nadu in 1967, within a few years entered into an electoral alliance with the Congress which had split. To bolster her progressive image, Indira Gandhi brought in bank nationalisation and abolished privy purses. But within a short time she had to face the combined opposition of the political parties, ranging from extreme right to left, when she imposed the Emergency and locked up all opposition leaders under the draconian Internal Security Act. She conceived amending the Constitution and brought in the 42nd Amendment Act (1977). She wanted to have cosmetic changes in the Preamble to the Constitution by adding the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’.
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The question of whether ‘socialism’ should be included in the Constitution was already debated in the constituent assembly. During an exchange with K T Shah, B R Ambedkar said the Constitution was just a mechanism to regulate the work of the various arms of state. He also said “what should be the policy of the state, how society should be organised in its social and economic side are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances”. At that time, there was not much opposition to the inclusion of the word ‘secular’.
The mega coalition, Janata Party, formed the government in 1978. The party which wanted to undo misdeeds of the Congress during the Emergency, including repealing amendments made to the Constitution, brought 44th amendment (1979) and did not choose to remove ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ from the Preamble.
The Congress, to further compel other political opponents, amended the Representation of People Act (June 1989) and introduced Part IV (A) by which political parties are to compulsorily register with the Election Commission and subscribe to the constitutional values. Sub-section 5 of Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, requires parties to give an undertaking declaring their “true faith and allegiance to the Constitution and to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy.
More than a decade later, a larger bench of the Supreme Court in S R Bommai’s case (1994) declared that ‘secularism’ was a basic feature of the Constitution. It held that the Preamble embodies the republic’s founding values and provided a reference point to interpret the Constitution. Articles of the Constitution as well as the spirit of the preamble underscore the spirit of socialism and secularism.
The BJP-led government headed by A B Vajpayee either during his short tenure in 1996 or in 1998-2004 did not amend the RP Act, as its amendment was a dilemma. It could amend its party constitution or go before the court. However, the party’s constitution was amended in its National Council Meeting at Chennai (1999). It declared that “the party (BJP) shall bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India and to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy”.
For the Congress and the BJP, ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ are merely catchwords. Liberalisation and disinvestment of the public sector do not have a dividing line, and on secularism —from Babri Masjid demolition till Ram Mandir’s bhoomi puja — they have not exhibited any different ideological positions. When an NGO tried to challenge the addition to the Preamble, the Supreme Court (2008) was advised: “Why do you take socialism in a narrow sense defined by (the) Communists. In a broader sense, it means welfare measures for the citizens. It is a facet of democracy.”
Both the national parties knew it was unnecessary to have an ideological war on such issues. A BJP Rajya Sabha member (Rakesh Sinha) moved a resolution for removal of the word ‘socialist’. Now, two advocates have moved the Supreme Court challenging amendment of the Preamble and also the RP Act. But the two parties know dilution of such concepts will be taken care of by courts. After all, it is not what is written in the Constitution that is important, but it is what the judges say. When Shiv Sena made Hindutva its political plank and contested elections, the Supreme Court said: “Hindutva/ Hinduism is a way of life of the people in the sub-continent and is a state of mind — not a religion” (1996). There went secularism. On socialism, even in late 1970s, Supreme Court said: “So long as private ownership of an industry is recognised and governs an overwhelmingly large proportion of our economic structure, is it possible to say that principles of socialism and social justice can be pushed to such an extreme so as to ignore completely or to a very large extent the interests of another section of the public namely the private owners of the undertakings?”. Thus socialism was buried deep.
It will be unnecessary for either of the two parties to make attempts to erase these principles, as they are only standing monuments to the hollowness of the political parties.
(The writer is a former judge of the Madras high court)
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