The Remains of the Emergency

CHIEF JUSTICE OF India BR Gavai, in his keynote address at the Edinburgh Law School, provided an insight into the Indian Constitution, observing that the Constitution is an “evolving document”. In an evolving society like India’s, it has remained a point of debate. Dattatreya Hosabale, general secretary of RSS, in a recent lecture on the Emergency, underscored the fact that the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ were not there in the Preamble to the Constitution but added later by Indira Gandhi’s government during the Emergency. These terms, in Hosabale’s opinion, needed a rethink in the context of an evolving democracy. Rahul Gandhi and Congress picked on his statement as evidence of RSS’ intentions to change the Constitution and plan to use it in the Bihar Assembly election campaign to mobilise backward caste and Dalit votes against BJP.

These terms had come up for discussion in the Constituent Assembly (CA) in 1949. Freedom fighter Hasrat Mohani and CA member Brajeshwar Prasad had proposed adding the words socialist andsecular to the Preamble. The proposal was rejected in the presence of great constitutionalists like BR Ambedkar and Rajendra Prasad. The terms were not mentioned even in the Objective Resolution moved by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1946. Therefore, these terms, absent from the Preamble prepared by Ambedkar and Nehru’s draft, wouldn’t have been there but for the 42nd Amendment of 1976, made under Emergency conditions.

The 42nd Amendment brought in many changes to Ambedkar’s version of the Constitution. Constitutional historians and political analysts have documented how the sweeping changes of the amendment disrupted the continuity of Ambedkar’s vision. The book Indira Gandhi, the ‘Emergency’ and Indian Democracy by PN Dhar, an adviser to Indira Gandhi, discussed the prime minister’s intentions behind such efforts. Thus, some of the changes introduced by the 42nd Amendment may be seen by anti-Emergency activists and scholars as the shadow of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency or traces of its memory. Such memories may be an integral part of the anti-Emergency discourse. Whatever Hosabale, who had emerged as a youth leader during the Emergency, has suggested can be seen as pertinent to, first of all, shaping the future discourse on the making of the Constitution; second, critically documenting and analysing certain impositions that brought drastic changes to the constitutional governance of the country; and third, discussing the Constitution to make it more lively as desired by Ambedkar.

When politics picks up a discourse, it tends to dilute its context and transform it into a new free-flowing set of meanings that can be electorally useful. The Bihar election comes with sensitivities about backward castes and marginalised groups. They are the state’s largest voting bloc. Congress and I.N.D.I.A. are trying to mobilise these groups in their favour by creating a for-and-against binary around the Constitution. Such efforts evoke fear among weaker sections of society, helped by strategic allegations made against political rivals.

Since democracy evolves through a critical evaluation of the past and present to build a better future, Hosabale’s proposal may be taken as an attempt to launch a debate on the imposition of the words socialist and secular during the Emergency and to make Indian democracy smoother. Democracy can be reshaped by a constitution which constantly evolves and adopts new changes and reflects them in its text and praxis. CJI Gavai rightly cited Ambedkar’s November 1949 speech in which he said: “The Constitution is a living document. We can’t bind the future generations to stick up to the Constitution that we are adopting today, and the future generations should have an opportunity to amend the Constitution, so as to adapt to the societal economic changes that the future generations would come across.” These words should keep us from falling into the trap of political campaigns around the Constitution.