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The recent demand by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates for the exclusion of the words “socialist” and “secular” from the preamble of the Indian Constitution – which were inserted at the instance of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during Emergency years – puts the spotlight on an inconvenient truth: Jayaprakash Narayan (JP), who ended the political untouchability towards the RSS and in the process granted it a golden growth opportunity in the 1970s, was one of the early advocates of establishing a socialist democratic republic.
Being a lifetime socialist, such a demand by JP wouldn’t surprise anyone. However, as leader of the Socialist Party, he had also demanded as early as 1947 that the draft Constitution be amended to insert the word, secular, in how it describes the Indian republic.
The preamble of the Constitution that Narayan and his party signed off reads as follows: “We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to form a Sovereign Democratic Republic and to establish Democratic Socialist Order, wherein social justice will prevail and all citizens will lead comfortable, free and cultured life, and enjoy equality of status and opportunity and liberty of thought, expression, faith and worship, do hereby, through our chosen representatives assembled in the Constituent Assembly, adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.”
In the other changes suggested by the Socialist Party, which had prepared a parallel draft, comprising two large parts, “secular state” was placed as a non-negotiable entry. In his foreword to the “Socialist draft” published in 1948, Narayan wrote, “The Indian Constitution is not likely to be, unless drastically amended, a fit instrument of full political and social democracy. The parts of the Constitution so far prepared by the Assembly confirm this fear.” Narayan wrote this on December 12, 1947, while he was in Nowgong, Assam, at a time when the Drafting Committee of the Constitution headed by BR Ambedkar was busy scrutinising, reworking and making additions to the original Draft by BN Rau, which was made publicly available to enable feedback from the public.
JP unhappy with ‘sedate’ lawyers
Narayan wrote in the foreword to the document titled “Draft Constitution of the Indian Republic”, the first edition of which came out in early 1948 (published by Suresh Desai, Secretary, Socialist Party, and printed by PN Bhargava at the Bhargava Bhushan Press, Banares), “Its (drafting committee) deliberations have been dominated by cool and sedate lawyers who give no evidence that they comprehend the significance of the turmoiled birth of a nation. There have been no passionate controversies raised in the Assembly, nor have we witnessed there the din and dust of any stubborn fight of interests and ideologies; nor even the flash and spark of a collision of personalities. Thus, the Assembly has carried on its hum drum work for a year, inspired not by the revolutionary mood and aspirations of the people but by the natural conservatism and timidity of worthy diwans and legal luminaries.” It was written long before the Draft Constitution was finally adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949, as the Constitution of India.
In his foreword to the Socialist Party’s own draft, which didn’t have much influence on the Constitution that India adopted later because it rejected its proposal to establish a socialist state, Narayan also writes that “It remains for me to acknowledge the help that Professor Mukut Behari Lai, Head of the Department of Political Science, Banaras Hindu University, has rendered in the preparation of this volume. It was entirely due to his labours, and the keen interest he took in it, that this work has been possible; and I have pleasure in expressing the Party’s gratitude for the time and thought he gave to it.”
Secularism is the top priority
In the section called “Review”, the Socialist Party led by Narayan specifies what they envisage as a secular state of India. It reads as follows: “…In the Middle Ages the society was dominated by religion and so the state assumed theocratic character in some countries. The state was, thus, made subservient to the church and heretics were made to suffer inquisitions and persecutions. But the religious bond failed to stop internecine feudal wars, while crusades added to human misery. At the beginning of the modern age religious uniformity was regarded as essential for political and national unity. The idea forced nations to suffer civil wars and massacres and had ultimately to be discarded as unsound and dangerous. Political life is being increasingly differentiated from religion and has assumed a secular character. Today in some European countries, like Great Britain, the state church is no doubt allowed to exist but mainly because it has ceased to count in matters of the state. Religious political parties are also to be found in some European Countries, but their role has invariably been reactionary in character. Though in the past Indian society was largely dominated by religion, the Indian state remained largely secular in character…. What we need most are the recognition of the territorial character of the state and complete differentiation of politics from religion. Even Gandhiji, essentially a man of religion, has begun to insist on the secular character of the state. Secularisation of politics is urgently needed and must be declared as our ideal.”
It adds, “The constitution must, therefore, lay down that ‘the state is secular.’”
Relentless “socialist” fight continues
Now, after the drafting committee went ahead with a different preamble that did not include any of his or his party’s suggestions, JP had for long wanted to include the word, “socialist”, in the preamble of the Indian Constitution, according to Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad, who has reviewed papers by key negotiators (one of which is his father HY Sharada Prasad and the other his maternal uncle KS Radhakrishna) involved in the Indira Gandhi–JP negotiations in the summer of 1974 to reach a political compromise amidst a political standoff between the two and mass protests led by JP against Indira Gandhi. Although he no longer appeared as kicked about the idea of a “secular” state as he had been earlier, not in his conversations with Indira.
Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad had written earlier, “All through the summer of 1974, Indira Gandhi and JP attempted to negotiate a compromise. Indira Gandhi’s negotiators were her principal secretary PN Dhar and my father HY Sharada Prasad, who was her information advisor. JP’s chief negotiator was my maternal uncle, KS Radhakrishna, head of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, who had been JP’s main advisor for decades. Radhakrishna was assisted by Sugata Dasgupta, head of the Gandhian Institute of Studies at Varanasi, retired justice VM Tarkunde and JP’s old colleague in the Congress Socialist Party, Achyut Patwardhan.”
According to Prasad, JP reminded Indira Gandhi in the presence of these negotiators on both sides in 1974 that he asked her in return for mentoring her during the 1969 Congress party split to amend the preamble of the Constitution as “a Democratic Socialist Republic”. Indira agreed to almost all of JP’s demands, except the dissolution of the Bihar assembly, and provisions for the recall of elected legislators. The talks hit a roadblock when JP finally insisted Mrs Gandhi resign as Prime Minister in the face of protests in various parts of the country by students and others, especially in Gujarat and Bihar.
Indira okayed JP’s 1953 demands
Interestingly, while JP was her mentor during the turbulent days of the 1969 split over a power struggle within the Congress, Indira Gandhi had fulfilled many of the demands JP had made to Nehru in the early 1950s. Scholar Dr Rakesh Ankit of Loughborough University, who has studied the relationship between JP and Indira Gandhi, says, “Mrs Gandhi’s socialist steps like bank nationalisation and abolition of privy purses were a part of JP’s 14-point manifesto of 1953 to Nehru.” She nationalised 14 commercial banks in 1969 and abolished privy purses for former rulers of princely states through the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of India in 1971.
Dr Ankit, who has penned books such as India in the Interim, India in the Interregnum, and also about the Kashmir dispute, writes in a paper that “before their break, the socialist JP and the statist Indira Gandhi exhibited complementary stands on national issues regarding Nagaland, Kashmir and Bangladesh. This national nearness complicates their later adversarial politics on domestic issues, adds dimension to our understanding of the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, and contributes to contemporary understandings of their respective places in narratives of the state against society in India.”
In a letter Indira Gandhi sent to JP on June 9, 1973, she says, “I have your letter of May 16. I saw your statement in the newspapers when it was released to the press. Now that you have taken the trouble of sending it to me, I presume a few comments from me would be in order and might even be expected.” She also adds, “It is gracious of you to assure me that you are not against me personally. It has been a privilege to have had your friendship over the years, whatever our political differences. Dissent is indispensable to democracy. Equally indispensable is a readiness to shoulder responsibilities in order to fulfil the dreams of a people.”
Indira Gandhi also wrote in the same letter that “You have spoken about the competing rights of democracy and socialism. It has been our endeavour throughout our struggle for freedom and during these 25 years as an independent nation to reconcile the two. I am perhaps more confident than you that we can achieve this reconciliation. Democracy, the independence of the judiciary and fundamental rights are not in danger. They would be threatened if we were to allow our faith to be eclipsed by defeatism and if we help alliances of the extreme right and left.”
JP, despite his differences of opinion with her, wrote back to Mrs Gandhi, on June 27, 1973, “‘Coming to your remarks about what I have said in my statement about the competing rights of democracy and socialism, I would again submit that “we” should cease to think in terms of “ourselves” being in power forever. You say that ‘It has been our endeavour throughout our struggle for freedom and during these 25 years as an independent nation to reconcile the two. I am perhaps more confident than you that we can achieve this reconciliation’. Suppose I grant you that, what guarantee is there that another government with other ideas of democracy and socialism will also be able to reconcile the two?”
These letters are proof of JP’s commitment to socialism as a goal, even as he politically diverged with Mrs Gandhi before he called for a “Total Revolution” against her authoritarian rule in 1974.
Breakdown of JP-Indira talks
The talks continued, steered by her negotiators to reach a settlement, but those efforts failed due to a raft of factors, including a reported attempt by Sanjay Gandhi, son of Mrs Gandhi, to derail such parleys. A news report disclosing the details of the negotiations also had unintended consequences and both JP and Mrs Gandhi became deeply suspicious of each other, hardening their stances.
Notwithstanding their hostilities deep into the Emergency days (starting from June 25 1975 to early 1977), Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad, says recalling what his father had to say, “In December 1976, Indira Gandhi more than kept her promises to Jayaprakash Narayan when she amended the Preamble to the Constitution to include the word ‘Socialist’.” It is said that JP had been campaigning since the latter part of the 1940s to have India formally declared a socialist republic in its Constitution. Mrs Gandhi also seems to have acted at the behest of the Socialist Bloc of countries that had worries about Sanjay Gandhi’s anti-socialist ideology.
Whatever the core reasons are, Indira Gandhi seems to have fulfilled what JP and his party had suggested in 1948 in their “Socialist draft” for the Indian Constitution.
Inexcusable excesses
But then the 42nd Amendment enacted during Emergency in 1976 didn’t just insert a few words like “socialism”, “secularism”, “integrity” into the preamble, it also brought in severe limitations on judicial review of Constitutional amendments during the period besides thrusting upon the people further restrictions, on top of suspending civil liberties and arresting rival politicians in their thousands, in the form of new fundamental duties of citizens. Michael Henderson, author of Experiment with Untruth: India Under Emergency”, noted that the 42nd amendment is a constant reminder that democracy cannot be taken for granted thanks to the speed with which certain legislations can wreak havoc with the lives of the people who often assume they live in a free country.
Certainly, that amendment hardly pleased JP.
JP, who had to be released from prison due to his deteriorating health and was hospitalised within months of being jailed, wrote to fellow socialist leader NG Goray on 14 December 1976, “I thank you for your telegram dated 11th December. I have consulted my prison diary and the entry dated October 10, 1975. I think that it still provides an adequate basis for a dialogue with the Government although I do not find any indication of willingness on their part for normalising the situation.” JP went on, ‘I believe that in case the Government revokes the emergency, withdraws various restrictions imposed on the freedom of the press through various enactments and other measures, restores other civil liberties including the right of assembly, puts political activity outside the purview of MISA and restores the right of Habeas Corpus and of judicial review further circumscribed by the 42nd amendment, releases all political prisoners unconditionally in good time and announces a firm date for holding a free general election, the opposition should have no hesitation in co-operating in the restoration of normalcy.”
Again, certain provisions of the overarching 42nd Amendment that placed certain subjects in the concurrent list continue to persist, especially in the division of powers between the Centre and the states.
(Ullekh NP is a writer, journalist and political commentator based in New Delhi. The author thanks Dr Rakesh Ankit of Loughborough University and Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad, son of HY Sharada Prasad, the late civil servant and media adviser to Indira Gandhi, for sharing valuable inputs for this story, which first appeared here.)