Sir — When it was proposed in the Constituent Assembly in 1948 that the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ be added to the Preamble, BR Ambedkar rejected it, saying: “If you state in the Constitution that the social organisation of the state shall take a particular form, you are, in my judgement, taking away the liberty of the people to decide what should be the social organisation in which they wish to live”.
The two words were inserted later. During the Emergency, the darkest chapter of our Republic, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi moved an amendment in a House where the Opposition benches were near empty. India didn’t become secular because its Constitution said so. It had been secular for centuries, as that is in the ethos of Indian culture. And by no stretch of argument is India in 2015 a socialist republic. It bid farewell to socialism in 1991.