Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday (June 28, 2025) questioned the relevance of the terms ‘socialism’ and ‘secularism’ in the Indian Constitution, calling them Western imports that should be removed from the Preamble.
Speaking at the launch of a book titled “The Emergency Diaries: Years That Forged a Leader” in Assam, Sarma stated that these terms were included during former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s tenure and, in his view, do not align with Indian civilisation or cultural values.
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“How can I be secular? I am a hardcore Hindu. A Muslim is a hardcore Muslim. How can he be secular?” he said, arguing that religious identities are intrinsic and incompatible with the Western interpretation of secularism.
Sarma asserted that the Indian approach to secularism differs from the Western model. He described it as one of positive alignment, rather than neutrality. He added that the insertion of ‘secularism’ in the Constitution reflected a Western outlook imposed by political decisions during the Emergency period.
He further questioned the inclusion of the term ‘socialism’, claiming it was inconsistent with India’s economic traditions. “Indian economic principle is based on trusteeship and supporting the marginalised, not socialism as defined in the West,” Sarma remarked.
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He also noted that the decline of socialism in India was not a result of BJP action but due to reforms brought in by former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh during the economic liberalisation of the early 1990s.
Addressing the broader theme of the event, Sarma said it was time to re-examine the impact of the Emergency, which lasted from June 25, 1975, to March 21, 1977. He stressed that the period led to significant damage to democratic institutions and should not be forgotten.
The book launch highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s early political journey during the Emergency, then as a young RSS pracharak, based on first-person narratives and archival records.
Sarma’s comments are expected to spark debate around constitutional values and the political legacy of the Emergency period.