'Secular' is appropriate, but shouldn't 'socialist' give way to 'welfare'?

India is a democracy and a welfare capitalist economy, and our leaders and intellectuals must have the courage to admit it

We all avoid opening a Pandora's Box lest the emotional curses are released. But our Supreme Court has risked it by deciding to hear on September 23 a petition seeking the removal of the words 'socialist' and 'secular' from the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.

The petitioner is a former MP, Subramanian Swamy, a dedicated Hindutvawadi and a staunch supporter of capitalism. He has contended that the insertions (42nd amendment of the constitution) were 'beyond the amending power of Parliament under Article 368.

While the insertion of 'secular' has been a hot topic in the volatile political atmosphere for quite some years, the word 'socialist' is generally not touched. That is political pragmatism. But, in reality, while the word 'secular' is appropriate for this land, the term 'socialist' is hopelessly out of sync.

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As we use it in India, the word' secular' essentially denotes the state should treat all religions the same. It is not only implicitly ingrained in the whole of our constitution, but it also reflects the essence of the Indian way of life for many millennia.

The Rig Veda, considered to be the most ancient 'Hindu' or Dharmic text, says: "The truth is one, but the sages (the wise ones) call it by many names or describe it in many ways" (Rig Veda; 1.164.46). Ramakrishna Paramhansa also said, "Jato mat tato path (many opinions, so many ways)."

So, for many millennia, cultural India has treated all faiths (Shakta, Shaiva, Vaishnava, Saura in ancient times, and Smarta Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrian, Islamic, and Christian in later days) as different paths to reach the same goal.

Not only that, the traditional Indian way of life that carries a legacy of many thousand years also allows questioning the very nature of God. The famous Nasadiya Sukta reads: "Whence all creation had its origin, the creator, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not, the creator, who surveys it all from the highest heaven, he knows, or it can be so that even he does not know" ( Rig Veda 10:129).

The Hindu faith also allows one to be a non-believer. The goal of the faith, or the way of life, is to protect dharma (whatever holds the creation) and fight a-dharma (the forces harmful to creation). It considers all those who are with dharma as equal. That is what in India we nowadays refer to as secularism.

But the word 'socialist' is neither in sync with our ancient and medieval economic and commercial practices nor those of modern India.

According to Angus Maddison, the British quantitative macroeconomic historian who measured the percentage of world GDP from 1 CE, India had about 25 per cent share of the world GDP (like that of the US of the present day, and it maintained its dominance (along with China) till before the imperialist powers occupied the country. Private entrepreneurs achieved these feats.

In a true sense, from 1947-1991, when the mixed economy model was being tried, it was an aberration in Indian history from the days of Indus-Saraswati Civilisation to the present. This aberration harmed India. In the end-70s, India's and China's GDP was comparable. China broke away in 1978 by adopting a 'socialist market economy' (a euphemism for adopting the capitalist path).

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India started economic reforms in 1991 under duress. Though P V Narasimha Rao did his best to turn the crisis into an opportunity risking his own political prospect, the time gap in opening up between China and India remains as crucial now as it was three decades ago. China was there just a decade ago, where we are now in developmental parameters.

So, it is high time we shed the baggage of socialism not only from the Preamble but also from our minds, as it has been proved beyond doubt that welfare capitalism is the only way forward. There will, of course, be some leftists trapped in outdated faith, but in the land of Charvaka tradition, they are expected to be there opposing all necessary privatisation drives. After all, criticism helps.

Again, as a concept, socialism is amorphous, and the Supreme Court admitted it to be so while rejecting a similar plea in 2008. Our Preamble should be free of such ambiguity, and the word 'socialist' should be replaced with 'welfare'. That will bind the governments in future to work within the parameters of the concept of true welfare of the people as a whole, and to stop wasteful expenditures.

India is a democracy (as opposed to a socialist system in the political sense) and a welfare capitalist economy. Our leaders and intellectuals must have the courage to admit it. And the change should be brought in by Parliament to make the Preamble reflect the truth. The Supreme Court can only decide on legal matters and give suggestions. The executive will have to act.

(Diptendra Raychaudhuri is a journalist and author based in Kolkata)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.