Vice President Dhankhar describes 'secularism', 'socialism' as ulcers

‘The party shall bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India and to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy and would uphold the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India,’ reads Article 2 of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s constitution.

The BJP indeed swears by ‘Gandhian Socialism’, at least on paper. Even more significantly, both in 2015 and in 2024 BJP leaders Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and others have ruled out any plan to change the Preamble to the Constitution.

However, the BJP has lost no opportunity to push for deletion of the words ‘secularism’ and ‘socialism’ from the Preamble.

On Saturday, 28 June, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar waded into the ongoing debate. While unveiling books on ‘Ambedkar’s messages’, the Vice President, who has been an enthusiastic proponent of ‘restoring’ the ‘original’ Preamble adopted by the Constituent Assembly in 1949, justified the demand for deleting the words ‘secularism’ and ‘socialism’ inserted by the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution passed by Parliament in 1976.

Dhankhar read copiously from the judgement delivered by 13 Supreme Court judges in the Kesavanand Bharati case (1973) on the significance of the Preamble as the ‘soul’ of the Constitution. The Vice President, however, carefully avoided pointing out that the apex court had upheld Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution, including the Preamble.

This view was once again repeated in a judgement in November 2024 by the then Chief Justice of India, Sanjiv Khanna, and Justice Sanjay Kumar. The Constitution, they pointed out, was a living document and since the Preamble was a part of the Constitution, it was up to Parliament to amend it to suit the aspirations of the people.

Vice President Dhankhar, however, in his address waxed eloquent, “The Preamble is not changeable… it is the seed of the Constitution… but this Preamble for Bharat was changed by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1976, adding words socialist, secular and integrity."

He went on to assert, “The Preamble, crafted by the genius of Dr. Ambedkar and approved by the Constituent Assembly, should have been respected rather than tweaked, altered and decimated… a very serious work which cannot be altered, has been casually, farcically, and with no sense of propriety, changed.”

We are changing the soul of the Constitution by this flash of words, added during the period of Emergency — the darkest period for the Constitution of the country.

These words have been added as नासूर. These words will create upheaval. Addition of these words in the Preamble… pic.twitter.com/cg2cmzN0r7

— Vice-President of India (@VPIndia) June 28, 2025

He also declared for good measure, “These words have been added as ‘nasoor’ (ulcer). These words will create upheaval. Addition of these words in the Preamble during the Emergency signals a betrayal of the mindset of the framers of the Constitution… it is sacrilege to the spirit of Sanatana. And in the process, if you deeply reflect, we are giving wings to existential challenges.”

Senior journalist and political commentator Ashutosh commented in a social media post, ‘The BJP is a strange party. Its leaders are so confused that they talk about removing “secularism” and “socialism” from the Indian Constitution but keep these two words in the constitution of their own party. The BJP should first remove these words from its own constitution.’

During campaigning in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when the BJP came under Opposition’s fire for its alleged plans to change the Constitution, Union minister Rajnath Singh said, "The BJP will never change the Constitution… there is no question of changing the Preamble. They (Congress) changed it and now they are making baseless allegations against us.”

Baseless or not, both the BJP and the RSS have revived the controversy again, either as a diversion or as part of an ongoing fishing expedition.

Copies of the tweaked and altered Constitution of India were first distributed in 2015 on the occasion of the Constitution Day on 26 November. The altered copies were once again circulated on the inauguration of the new parliament building. In the general election of 2024, several BJP leaders openly spoke of their commitment to change the Constitution. On multiple occasions they have spoken of a new ‘Constitution of Bharat as a Hindu Rashtra’.

On each occasion, the BJP leaders backed out and assured that there were no plans to change the Preamble or the Constitution. In 2015, the then party president Amit Shah, who is now the Union home minister, declared, “The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) respects the Constitution as it stands today, with the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ in its Preamble.”

Describing the controversy over distribution of the ‘original’ version of the Constitution, which did not have the words in the Preamble, as “meaningless”, he had then stated, “The BJP believes that the Preamble, as it stands today, should remain. There is no need to change it.”

The jury is out on whether this amounts to double standards, opportunism or mischief. But in less than a week, a BJP leader has called for the tricolour to be changed to saffron while the RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale ventured to add that socialism and secularism are not in India’s ethos.

This also serves to divert attention from the current undeclared and permanent state of Emergency when institutions and the Constitution itself are being subverted on a daily basis.

And now the Vice President has referred to both as ulcers. What is cooking?