Which among the following words were inserted in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution by the 42nd Constitution Amendment ?
1. Socialist
2. Secular
3. Sovereign
4. Republic
Select the correct answer

Question

Which among the following words were inserted in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution by the 42nd Constitution Amendment ?
1. Socialist
2. Secular
3. Sovereign
4. Republic
Select the correct answer from the code given below :
Code :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, 1 and 2 — Socialist and Secular. The Forty-second Constitutional Amendment Act, which received the President's assent on 18 December 1976 and whose Preamble clause came into force on 3 January 1977, rewrote the opening description of India in the Preamble from 'SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC' to 'SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC', and in the same operation changed 'unity of the Nation' to 'unity and integrity of the Nation'. Exactly three words therefore entered the Preamble in 1976 — socialist, secular and integrity — and two of them, socialist and secular, are on the list this question offers. Sovereign and Republic were not added by any amendment: both stood in the Preamble as the Constituent Assembly adopted it on 26 November 1949, when the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950. So statements 1 and 2 are the amendment's work and statements 3 and 4 are original.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Socialist is correctly identified, but Sovereign is not an insertion. 'Sovereign' was part of the Preamble's original wording and carries the founding claim that India's authority derives from its own people and from no external power — the very idea the Constituent Assembly was asserting in 1949. Nothing in 1976 needed to add it.  (b) The same error with the other correct word. Secular did come in through the 42nd Amendment, but Sovereign did not; it was there from the start. The pairing is designed for a candidate who remembers that one of 'socialist' and 'secular' was added and then attaches it to the nearest impressive-sounding word in the list.  (c) Both of these are original. 'Sovereign' and 'Republic' were in the Preamble adopted on 26 November 1949 — Republic being the declaration that the head of state is elected rather than hereditary, which is why 26 January 1950 is Republic Day. This option would have India acquiring its republican character in 1976, during the Emergency, which is the opposite of the historical record.

Concept: The Preamble now reads: 'WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation.' It has been amended once and only once, by the 42nd Amendment of 1976, which inserted socialist and secular into the description of the polity and integrity into the fraternity clause. The 42nd Amendment is nicknamed the 'Mini-Constitution' because of its sheer reach — fifty-nine clauses touching almost every part of the Constitution — and it was enacted during the Emergency of 25 June 1975 to 21 March 1977, on the basis of a committee headed by Swaran Singh, with Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister.

State PCS 2025 Q38 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q38 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer