which new words were added o the preamble in the 42nd amendment of the constitution ?
Answers
Answer:
Amendment of the Preamble
The 42nd Amendment changed the description of India from a "sovereign democratic republic" to a "sovereign, socialist secular democratic republic", and also changed the words "unity of the nation" to "unity and integrity of the nation".
Bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha: Constitution
- (Forty-second Amendment) Bill, 1976
- Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha: The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Bill, 1976
Answer:
Amendment of the Preamble
The 42nd Amendment changed the description of India from a "sovereign democratic republic" to a "sovereign, socialist secular democratic republic", and also changed the words "unity of the nation" to "unity and integrity of the nation".
Explanation:
The 42nd Amendment changed the description of India from a "sovereign democratic republic" to a "sovereign, socialist secular democratic republic", and also changed the words "unity of the nation" to "unity and integrity of the nation".
B. R. Ambedkar, the principal architect of the Constitution, was opposed to declaring India's social and economic structure in the Constitution. During the Constituent Assembly debates on framing the Constitution in 1946, K.T. Shah proposed an amendment seeking to declare India as a "Secular, Federal, Socialist" nation. In his opposition to the amendment, Ambedkar stated, "My objections, stated briefly are two. In the first place the Constitution... is merely a mechanism for the purpose of regulating the work of the various organs of the State. It is not a mechanism where by particular members or particular parties are installed in office. What should be the policy of the State, how the Society should be organised in its social and economic side are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances. It cannot be laid down in the Constitution itself, because that is destroying democracy altogether. If you state in the Constitution that the social organisation of the State shall take a particular form, you are, in my judgment, taking away the liberty of the people to decide what should be the social organisation in which they wish to live. It is perfectly possible today, for the majority people to hold that the socialist organisation of society is better than the capitalist organisation of society. But it would be perfectly possible for thinking people to devise some other form of social organisation which might be better than the socialist organisation of today or of tomorrow. I do not see therefore why the Constitution should tie down the people to live in a particular form and not leave it to the people themselves to decide it for themselves. This is one reason why the amendment should be opposed."[21]
Ambedkar's second objection was that the amendment was "purely superfluous" and "unnecessary", as "socialist principles are already embodied in our Constitution" through Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy. Referring to the Directive Principles, he asked Shah, "If these directive principles to which I have drawn attention are not socialistic in their direction and in their content, I fail to understand what more socialism can be". Shah's amendment failed to pass,[21] and the Preamble remained unchanged until the 42nd Amendment.
Aftermath
See also: 1977 Indian general election
Morarji Desai became Prime Minister after the 1977 elections.
During the Emergency, Indira Gandhi implemented a 20-point program of economic reforms that resulted in greater economic growth, aided by the absence of strikes and trade union conflicts. Encouraged by these positive signs and distorted and biased information from her party supporters, Gandhi called for elections in May 1977.[22] However, the Emergency era had been widely unpopular. The 42nd Amendment was widely criticised, and the clampdown on civil liberties and widespread abuse of human rights by police angered the public.[14]
In its election manifesto for the 1977 elections, the Janata Party promised to "restore the Constitution to the condition it was in before the Emergency and to put rigorous restrictions on the executive's emergency and analogous powers".[13] The election ended the control of the Congress (Congress (R) from 1969) over the executive and legislature for the first time since independence.[18] After winning the elections, the Moraji Desai government attempted to repeal the 42nd Amendment. However, Gandhi's Congress party held 163 seats in the 250 seat Rajya Sabha, and vetoed the government's repeal bill.[4]
The Janata government then brought about the 43rd and 44th Amendments in 1977 and 1978 respectively, to restore the pre-1976 position to some extent.[5] Among other changes, the amendments revoked the 42nd Amendment's provision that Directive Principles take precedence over Fundamental Rights, and also curbed Parliament's power to legislate against "antinational activities".[18] However, the Janata Party was not able to fully achieve its objective of restoring the Constitution to the condition it was in before the Emergency.