'The word equity means so much more to the dynamic world India today is in than the word 'socialism'.'
Former bureaucrat turned Bharatiya Janata Party MP Alphons Kannanthanam -- better known as K J Alphons -- opened a pandora's box when he introduced a private member's bill in the Rajya Sabha proposing to amend the Preamble of the Constitution.
One of the words in the Preamble Alphons wants to change is 'socialist' as he is of the opinion that socialism has lost its meaning now!
There was protest from the Opposition in the Upper House, and the Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha said an amendment to the Preamble is an attack on the very edifice of the Constitution.
K J Alphons tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier why he wants changes to the Preamble of the Constitution. The first of a two-part interview:
Why did you decide to move a bill in the Rajya Sabha seeking some changes in the Preamble of the Constitution?
We are in our 75th year of independence, and it is 71 years since the Constitution was promulgated.
It has been amended so many times. We have made so many changes as things keep changing in a dynamic nation.
We are not in the same state as we were in 1947. So, changes have to be made. And the amendments were necessitated by the changing times.
One of the words you want to change is 'socialist'. Why?
That is not the only change I have spoken about. I have asked for 4-5 changes in the Preamble of the Constitution. In fact, the bill I have proposed has only 5-6 lines.
There is nothing sacrosanct about the Preamble than the rest of the Constitution.
The Opposition objected to your bill saying the Preamble is the basic structure of the Constitution and it cannot be amended...
The Supreme Court, which has the authority to interpret the Constitution officially, never said that the Preamble is the basic structure of the Constitution, and it can't be amended.
So, what the Opposition said was factually incorrect.
And the Preamble has been amended before.
In 1976, during the Emergency, the then Indira Gandhi government inserted the words 'socialist' and 'secular'...
So, there is no sanctity to the Preamble of the Constitution alone. But the Constitution as a whole has a sanctity, and it will be amended when necessary. That's why I said it is a dynamic document.
The first amendment I have proposed is to change the word 'socialism' to 'equitable'.
You said socialism has lost its meaning now. Why?
Socialism is a politically loaded terminology. When we got Independence, it was the Nehruvian era, and we adopted the Soviet model of socialism.
So, we had the 5-year plans, etc under a controlled economy. The focus then was on distribution rather than production.
We were a starving nation, and if the ship did not come from the US carrying foodstuff, India would starve. That was the kind of status we had for many years.
We have come a long, long way from there. Today, we are a food surplus country. And we are one of the largest economies in the world.
So, today the focus has to be on equity. The fruits of development should reach out to everybody.
And the word 'equity' does not have a political connotation at all. It is a word which is acceptable to everybody, and everyone understands the meaning.
But many will have objection to the word 'socialism' because like I said earlier, it is a word loaded with politics and subscribing to a political ideology.
Equitable means everybody has a right to the resources of this country, and everybody has the right to share the opportunities and also the fruits of development.
The word equity means so much more to the dynamic world India today is in than the word 'socialism.'
Will 'socialism' as an ideology ever lose its true meaning?
If the word 'socialism' means everybody should be taken care of, you can instead use 'equitable' as it incorporates good sense too.
I would say, equitable is a much broader terminology, it is inclusive, it makes more sense and it is more expressive of what the country should really be doing than a terminology like socialism which doesn't mean anything to people.
What good has socialism done to the people of India in the last 71 years?
The big change that happened was in 1991 when we liberalised the economy, and moved away from the socialistic ideology though the government of that day would not agree.
And we have come a long, long way from the socialist era.
In 2014, we were talking about creating wealth and having it distributed properly.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
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