Constitution of India and dark history of its murder during emergency

Dr. Kalpana Bora

(kalpana.bora@gmail.com)

On August 2, 1935, the Government of India Act 1935 was passed, and the constitutional framework was laid down for the governance of British India at the federal and provincial levels. Lord Willington was the Governor-General of India at that time. In 1946, the Cabinet Mission formed the Constituent Assembly (which had 389 seats, reduced to 299 after partition) to draft the Constitution of India. On Monday, December 9, 1946, the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly took place in Constitution Hall (now called Central Hall of Parliament House), New Delhi, with 211 members, and on December 11, 1946, Dr. Rajendra Prasad was appointed its president.

Bharat Ratna Baba Saheb Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was appointed as the Chairman of the Draughting Committee of the Constituent Assembly on August 29, 1947, along with six other members, and played a pivotal role in draughting the Indian Constitution. Known as the architect of the Constitution of India, Dr. Ambedkar was also the first law minister of independent India. Holding eleven sessions covering 165 days of sitting, the Constituent Assembly took almost three years to draft the Constitution, comprising 395 articles and 8 schedules. Prem Behari Narain Raizada was the calligrapher of the Indian Constitution (original English) – the original constitution was written by him in a flowing italic style. The constitution even had intricate artwork – 22 pictorial illustrations from the tapestry of the rich cultural legacy of Bharat, including those from the Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita, a seal of a bull from the Harappan or Sindhu Ghati civilisation, a Gurukul, enlightened Gautam Buddha, Swami Mahavir, Nalanda, and Nataraja in the cosmic dance style.

The Constitution was adopted on November 26, 1949. Members of Parliament signed it on January 24, 1950, and it came into effect on January 26, 1950 (Republic Day). The Preamble of the Constitution of India, as adopted on November 26, 1949, reads as follows:

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN, DEMO- CRATIC, REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, social, economic and political;

LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;

EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all

FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity of Nation;

IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT,

ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

It should be noted that words like “socialist” and “secular” are not there in this original preamble of our constitution. These words were inserted later during the dark period of internal emergency, imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 25 June, 1975.

On June 20, 2025, Vice President (VP) Sh. Jagdeep Dhankhar slammed the Supreme Court over the emergency-era verdict, dubbing it the “darkest in judicial history”. According to an official statement, he said, “The judgement of the Supreme Court overruling that of nine High Courts legitimised dictatorship and authoritarianism.” Addressing a group of Rajya Sabha interns, the vice president said, “A president cannot act on the advice of an individual, the prime minister. The Constitution is very categorical.” On June 28, 2025, VP Dhankhar agreed that “the Preamble is the ‘seed’ on which the Constitution grows,” and he also reminded people –

“That Preamble is not changeable yet was changed during the Emergency in 1976.”

The vice president said, “The present government has ‘wisely’ decided to observe June 25 every year as ‘Samvidhan Hatya Diwas’.”

Dark History of Emergency

June 25, 1975 - March 21, 1977, the period of Emergency, marks one of the darkest periods in the history of post-independence democracy of Bharat. Elections to the fifth Lok Sabha were held in 1971, and the Congress had secured an absolute majority. During the early 1970s, the Congress government led by then PM Indira Gandhi was facing a lot of opposition due to unemployment, inflation, dissatisfaction fuelled by corruption and student-led agitations. On June 12, 1975, Allahabad High Court ruled that then PM of India, Indira Gandhi, had misused government machinery in her 1971 Lok Sabha election campaign. The court found her guilty under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and disqualified her from holding any elected office for six years. The Supreme Court granted a conditional stay; however, the political crisis intensified, with demands for her resignation. On 25 June 1975, the then President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed issued an emergency proclamation under Article 352, citing threats from internal disturbance. This was the third emergency in India’s history – the first one declared in peacetime. Earlier proclamations were during wars with China (1962) and Pakistan (1971).

On 27 June 1975, Articles 358 and 359 were invoked, curtailing freedom of speech, expression, assembly, and movement, and allowing the state to suspend enforcement of fundamental rights, including equality before law, the right to life and liberty, and protection against detention. Many leaders of the opposition were arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA). Several thousands of people were detained under preventive detention without trial. Pre-censorship was imposed on all newspapers; editors were required to get government clearance before publishing anything. Through constitutional amendment, the term of the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies was extended from five to six years. One of the most controversial aspects of the emergency was the forced sterilisations.

On May 21, 1976, then Law, Justice and Company Affairs Minister H.R. Gokhale introduced the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution Bill in Lok Sabha, which contained the inclusion of the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ in the preamble to the Constitution. This amendment was discussed for three consecutive days – 94 members participated in the debate, most of whom were from Congress (71 MPs)! Such a drastic change in the preamble has been repeatedly criticized and seen as a politically motivated move.

Why didn’t the Preamble to the Constitutionhave the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’?

We, as the responsible citizens of Bharat, should know why the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ were not included in the preamble to the Constitution by its architects way back in 1949. Dr. Ambedkar categorically pointed out that the Constitution could not be seen as a document that imposes a particular social or economic ideology on future generations of the country. When it was suggested to include the word “socialism”, he replied –

“What should be the policy of the state and how society should be organized in its social and economic side are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances. It cannot be laid down in the Constitution itself because that is destroying democracy altogether.”

Dr. Ambedkar argued that ‘Socialism’ in the Preamble would restrict the liberty of future generations to choose their own path. In his second point, Dr. Ambedkar argued that “the draughted constitution already had provisions that could be seen as socialist principles through the Directive Principles of State Policy.” He pointed to Article 31 of the draft and “emphasized that it outlined measures such as preventing the concentration of wealth and providing equal pay for equal work, which, in fact, are socialist provisions.” These words of Dr Ambedkar reflected on the importance of “economic flexibility”.

The word ‘secular’ was not included in the preamble to the Constitution in 1949 because Dr Ambedkar was a strong advocate for keeping religion out of politics. Both Pt Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr. Ambedkar argued that the term ‘secular’ need not be explicitly mentioned in the preamble. Ambedkar argued that the Constitution had already made it clear that India would be a state that did not recognise any religion, and various articles that dealt with religious freedom and the non-alignment of the state with any particular religion (Article 16 and Article 19) were already there in the draft. He believed that decisions about socialism and secularism should reflect the will of the people and should not become the ideological preferences of a ruling government.

Call to remove ‘Socialist and Secular’ from the Constitution

“We must reflect,” VP Dhankhar said that when Dr. Ambedkar formulated the Constitution, he must have “surely focused on it”. He also said that India is the only country that has seen the Preamble of its Constitution undergo a change. These terms were forcibly added to the Constitution and need to be reconsidered in the present times. It is also being argued that ‘secularism’ has been “imported from the West, and it does not represent Bharatiyasanskriti. The basic sentiment of Bharat is equality of all religions. Secularism is not the core of our culture.”

So, aren’t we disrespecting the Constitution by accepting the changed preamble that was forcefully changed during the emergency? And hence, it is the right time to call to remove the words ‘Socialist’ and ‘Secular’ from the Preamble of our Constitution – that will be a true tribute to Bharat Ratna Baba Saheb Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the erudite scholar, lawyer, academician, and social reformer who draughted the Constitution of India based on several rounds of debates of the Constituent Assembly of India.