1. I am grateful to this assembly for the opportunity to relate the story of the Sikhs in India. After an amendment to the constitution, the preamble now describes India as a “socialist, secular and democratic republic.”1 It is one of the bulkiest constitutions of the world. Like everything else that sounds good in its ample body, the preamble too is borrowed from another constitution. Regrettably in all other cases also, words have been copied while the noble spirit that animated them originally has been grossly distorted and rendered into the ugliest ever witnessed.
2. The word secular does not mean what it meant to originators of the secular movement of the mid nineteenth century. By series of judicial interpretation, it has been ascribed a special meaning. Consequently, in the Indian context it has come to mean that the state has no religion of its own, that it is not concerned with the religion of its citizens and observes complete neutrality towards all religions.2 The truth however is quite different. Complete functioning of the state is tailored solely according to the interests and norms prescribed by the culture and traditions of the permanent Hindu majority comprising about 85% of India’s population.
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