Democratic or not, every country has a Constitution. India has the longest, most extensive Constitution, with a Preamble that emphasises justice, equality, liberty and fraternity. One person named K.J Alphons, a member of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament), wants to change that.
He proposed a Private Members’ Bill to amend the Preamble of the Constitution. Among other things, the bill asks to replace the word ‘socialist’ with ‘equitable,’ and add the word ‘access’ as part of the words at the beginning of each sentence after the first paragraph. Alphons believes that the word ‘socialist’ has, over time, lost its meaning. Socialism, he believes, is now linked to an ideology. Equitable will mean that everyone has equal opportunity in the country and equal access to resources like food.
Alphons also sought to state what equality and fraternity mean by expanding the sentences. Equality would include the right to life, right to employment, right to eat, and right to be respected. According to him, these would serve the purpose of replacing a vague sentence with a purposeful one.
To understand how far the proposal will go, we first have to understand the private members’ bill and what purpose it has served since the constitution came into being. Anyone who is not a minister but serves as a Member of Parliament (MP) is a Private Member. This includes members of the Rajya Sabha. The Bills introduced by them would be referred to as Private Members’ Bills, as opposed to the government Bills proposed by elected ministers.
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