Agencies/New Delhi

A government advertisement for Republic Day published in newspapers omitted the words “socialist, secular” in the image of the Preamble to the Constitution, triggering an uproar and signature campaigns over social media platforms.
The alleged faux pas in the advertisement printed on January 26 came to light a day before US President Barack Obama said at a public event in New Delhi that upholding religious freedom was the responsibility of the government.
“The controversy surrounding the ad is uncalled for. The photo of original Preamble was a way of honouring the founding fathers of the Constitution,” tweeted Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore.
The Preamble reads: “We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic...”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has hailed the Constitution as the nation’s holy book, but the two missing words in the official ad have kicked up a controversy at a time when there are concerns about growing religious intolerance in the country.
Congress leader and former minister Manish Tewari attacked the government, saying the omission of the two words in the advertisement was only a prelude to their substitution with “communal” and “corporate.”
Another Congress leader called it an insult of the ethos of the Constitution.
“The advertisement reflects an affront to the Constitution and sacrilegious insult to its ethos,” party spokesman Randeep Surjewala said.
“We also call upon the prime minister to clarify his stand on his definition and understanding of the words secularism and socialism as also the path that the government proposes to take on these two important fundamentals ingrained in the letter and spirit of the Constitution,” he added.
“A democracy can’t succeed without people’s participation,” says the ad, a Republic Day message, quoting Modi.
It also depicts people wearing traditional Indian attire and carries the full Preamble of the original 1950 Constitution in the background.
However, the words “socialist” and “secular” - added to the Preamble by the 42nd constitutional amendment act of 1976 - are missing.
In Mumbai, the Shiv Sena party said the two words must be dropped permanently from the Preamble.
Party MP Sanjay Raut welcomed the exclusion of the words from the advertisement.
“We welcome this. Though it may have been done inadvertently, it was like honouring the feelings of the people of India. If the terms were mistakenly deleted this time, we want them to be removed permanently from the Constitution,” Raut said.
However, Nationalist Congress Party executive president Jitendra Awhad opposed the Shiv Sena proposal.
Analysts said with the central government making land acquisition easier under public-private-partnership mode and Bharatiya Janata Party state governments like Rajasthan and perhaps even Maharashtra moving towards labour reforms - lifting the protection of labour laws for a larger number of enterprises - the exclusion of the word “socialist” could also be considered controversial.






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