To remove the word ‘secular’ from the constitution would be a “dangerous move”, says Shaheed Siddiqui, a Muslim leader and former socialist MP from Uttar Pradesh
Fears among minorities of Hindu domination have been revived after the Indian government called for a debate on whether it should abandon the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ from its constitution.
India has always taken pride in its status as a secular republic but since last year’s landslide election victory which swept Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party to power, their supporters have put pressure on Muslims and Christians to ‘come home’ to Hinduism, the subcontinent’s oldest faith.
The suggestion comes just days after President Barack Obama made an impassioned plea, as a Christian, for religious tolerance during his visit to the capital earlier this week.
In his final speech before leaving New Delhi on Tuesday, Mr Obama reminded a young audience that the constitutions of India and the United States both guaranteed that “every person has the right to practise their faith how they choose, or to practise no faith at all, and to do so free from persecution and fear”.
Shortly after he left the Indian government was accused of deliberately dropping the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ from a Republic Day advertisement which reproduced the first words of the constitution. One senior minister defended the omission and called for a debate on whether they should be permanently removed.
The words had not featured in India’s original 1950 constitution, drafted by the Dalit leader Dr. B.R Ambedkar and first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, but were added during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency in 1976, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the telecom minister, said.
“What is the objection in placing some views in a historical perspective…What is the harm if there is a debate on it? We have put before the nation the original preamble”, he said.
Opposition leaders and some of the government’s own sympathisers warned the proposal could threaten India’s national unity.
Shaheed Siddiqui, a Muslim leader and former socialist MP from Uttar Pradesh, said shortly before his election victory last year Narendra Modi had assured him he would not remove the word ‘secular’ from the constitution and he warned him not to change his mind now.
“It’s a dangerous move. Once you start, everything will open up, it will weaken the seams and break. In a country like India the whole structure is fragile,” he said.
