UPPSC 2025 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 38 of 150

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.

• (a)1 and 3 — 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)2 and 3 — 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)3 and 4 — 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.

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.

Two habits solve every question in this family. First, memorise the count, not just the names: the 42nd Amendment put three words into the Preamble — socialist, secular, integrity — and examiners regularly offer a list that contains only two of the three, as here, so that the missing 'integrity' is not a signal that something is wrong. Second, fix the original adjectives by their dates: 'Sovereign', 'Democratic' and 'Republic' belong to 26 November 1949 and are the words the Objectives Resolution of 1946 was pointing towards, while 'Socialist' and 'Secular' carry a 1976 date stamp. A useful cross-check is that the Preamble never uses the word 'Federal' at all — UPPSC asked precisely that in 2021 — so a candidate who has the full sentence by heart can dispose of the whole family of questions quickly.

• The 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act received assent on 18 December 1976; its Preamble clause (Section 2) came into force on 3 January 1977
• It inserted three words into the Preamble — 'socialist' and 'secular' into the description of the polity, and 'integrity' into the phrase 'unity and integrity of the Nation'
• 'Sovereign', 'Democratic' and 'Republic' were in the Preamble as adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949
• The Preamble has been amended only once in the Constitution's history — by this amendment
• The 42nd Amendment ran to fifty-nine clauses and touched almost every part of the Constitution, which is why it is nicknamed the 'Mini-Constitution'; it was enacted during the Emergency, following the report of a committee chaired by Swaran Singh
• A petition challenging the insertion of 'socialist' was filed in 2008 and withdrawn on 12 July 2010 after the Supreme Court described the issue as 'highly academic'

• Forgetting that the 42nd Amendment inserted a third word, 'integrity', which is often absent from the option list on purpose
• Marking 'Sovereign' as an insertion because it sits next to the two added words in the amended text
• Confusing the Preamble's contents with Article 51A — 'to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India' is a Fundamental Duty, not a Preamble phrase

UPPSC asks it by number — which words came in through the 42nd Amendment, or which word is not in the Preamble — while UPSC prefers the contents and status of the Preamble: which objective is not embodied in it, or what legal effect it carries.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Apart from 'Socialist' and 'Secular', which other word was introduced into the Preamble by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment?

  • (a)Fraternity
  • (b)Integrity
  • (c)Dignity
  • (d)Justice

  Answer(b) Integrity — the amendment changed 'unity of the Nation' to 'unity and integrity of the Nation'; fraternity, dignity and justice were already there.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  How many times has the Preamble to the Constitution of India been amended?

  • (a)Never
  • (b)Once
  • (c)Twice
  • (d)Three times

  Answer(b) Once — by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1976, which added 'socialist', 'secular' and 'integrity'.