Adding Secular, Socialist to Constitution From Start Would Have Been Superfluous | Raju Ramachandran

The Indian Constitution came into effect on January 26, 1950 and Republic Day is a commemoration of that. The framers of the Constitution gave the nation a document that had the vision to guide matters of the Indian state.

Many questions have been raised about the Constitution – some members of the BJP want to remove the words secular and socialist because they were not in the original document. “It would have superfluous to add the words then,” says veteran constitutional lawyer Raju Ramchandran in this podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia. “It was obvious from the document that it would be a welfare state and a secular state,” he says.

Ramachandran says the One Nation One Election idea “militates against federalism” because it “subordinates the rights against the states”. He rejects the idea that it would save money: “In fact it will be more expensive, with the cost of additional manpower, EVMs etc.”

On the threats against the Constitution being changed, he says citizens – and more importantly, courts – should be vigilant against any such attempt.