Which two words have been incorporated in the Preamble by 42nd Amendment ?

Question

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Correct — C, Secular and socialist. The Preamble as it now stands declares that the people of India resolved to constitute India into a 'SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC', and the official text of the Constitution carries a footnote at exactly that point recording where the words came from: they were substituted by 'the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, s. 2, for "SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC"', with effect from 3 January 1977. So the phrase in the Constitution adopted on 26 November 1949 was 'Sovereign Democratic Republic', and section 2 of the 42nd Amendment inserted SOCIALIST and SECULAR into the middle of it. That footnote settles the whole question, because it also tells you what was already there — Sovereign, Democratic and Republic — and every wrong option is built from one of those three. Section 2 made one further change to the Preamble that candidates routinely forget. It substituted 'unity and integrity of the Nation' for 'Unity of the Nation' in the fraternity clause, adding the word integrity. Three words were therefore added altogether — socialist, secular and integrity — but only two of them describe the character of the State, and it is those two the question asks for. The distinction matters, because a question phrased 'which three words' and a question phrased 'which two words' have different correct answers from the same amendment, and BPSC has asked both forms.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Republic and secular — half right, which is what makes each of these compound options dangerous. Secular was indeed inserted in 1976. Republic was not: it stood in the Preamble from the moment the Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949, and it is the word that gives 26 January 1950 its name as Republic Day. An option is wrong if either of its two words fails, so this one falls on 'Republic' alone.  (b) Democratic and socialist — the mirror image of option (a). Socialist was added by the 42nd Amendment; Democratic was part of the original formula 'Sovereign Democratic Republic' from 1949. A candidate who remembers that one of the two words in this pair was inserted, and does not check the other, will mark it.  (d) Socialist and sovereign — again one genuine addition paired with an original word, and arguably the least plausible of the three, because sovereignty is the founding claim of the entire document. A Constitution given by the people to themselves could hardly have waited twenty-seven years to describe the State as sovereign; the word opens the formula in the 1949 text.

Concept: The Preamble states the source of the Constitution's authority, the character of the State, the objectives it is to secure and the date of adoption, and it has been amended exactly once in seventy-five years. Its legal standing was settled in Kesavananda Bharati in 1973, where the Supreme Court held that the Preamble is part of the Constitution and can therefore be amended under Article 368, though not so as to damage the basic structure; the 42nd Amendment's change three years later is the only exercise of that power. The amendment itself is the largest in Indian constitutional history and is commonly called the mini-Constitution. Enacted during the Emergency, it inserted Part IVA carrying the Fundamental Duties in Article 51A — ten of them, the eleventh being added much later by the 86th Amendment in 2002 — added new Directive Principles including Article 39A on equal justice and free legal aid, Article 43A on the participation of workers in the management of industries and Article 48A on the protection of the environment, and moved five subjects, among them education and forests, from the State List to the Concurrent List. A great deal of it was reversed by the 44th Amendment in 1978, but the Preamble change was not, which is why it remains the visible legacy of the 42nd.

State PCS 2024 Q28 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q28 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer