Shillong, June 29: Former GHADC MDC Sofior Rahman has condemned Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for his reported remarks seeking removal of “secularism” and “socialism” from the Indian Constitution.
The former MDC of Balachanda constituency termed Sarma’s statement “factually misleading, constitutionally unsound, and politically provocative”.
Reacting to the Assam chief minister’s reported remark that “secularism” and socialism are “Western concepts” inserted during the Emergency period under former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Rahman said spirit of the two words had always been present in the Constitution.
He refuted the notion of Indian secularism being a ‘Western import’, asserting its deep roots in India’s “centuries-old values of tolerance, pluralism, and peaceful coexistence—from Ashoka to Akbar to Gandhi”.
To Sarma’s reported declaration, “How can I be secular? I am a hardcore Hindu,” Rahman said, “A person can follow any faith and still support a secular State.”
He also reminded politicians “who take oath on the Constitution should uphold its values, not question or dismantle them for ideological convenience.”
