“Socialism means the government redistributing economic resources. The whole ‘compassion’ argument is a smokescreen for expanding government power over economic resources. It has failed spectacularly everywhere it has been tried, including the version tried in India,” Vembu wrote in a post on social media platform X.
He further said, “The Indian Constitution was altered during the Emergency to force ‘socialism’ on us. We have to undo this.”
Vembu’s remarks come days after RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale called for a national debate on the continued inclusion of the terms socialist and secular in the Preamble. He noted that these words were never part of the original Constitution.
An article on RSS-linked weekly Organiser also described the insertion of these terms during the Emergency as an “act of constitutional fraud” and an “ideological imposition” that contradicts the civilisational ethos of Bharat.
“Bharat must revert to the original Preamble, as envisioned by the founding fathers… Let us undo Emergency’s constitutional sin and reclaim the Preamble for the people of Bharat,” wrote Dr Niranjan B Poojar in an opinion piece titled ‘Revisiting Socialist and Secular in the Preamble: Reclaiming India’s Constitutional Integrity’. “The words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ are not Indian in spirit, not constitutional in procedure, and not democratic in intent. They are ideological landmines, designed to subvert dharmic values, justify State outreach, and serve political appeasement,” he argued. However, it’s worth noting that the Supreme Court last year reaffirmed that secularism is a core part of the basic structure of the Constitution and clarified that terms like “socialist” and “secular” need not be viewed solely through a Western lens.
The words socialist, secular, and integrity were added to the Preamble through the 42nd Constitutional Amendment, passed during the Emergency in 1976 under the Indira Gandhi government.
