Thread by @_Shams11

Hindu bias elements in the Indian Constitution:

Article 1: Name and territory of the Union (1) India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States

The naming of India as Bharat reflected the power of the Hindutva-minded sections of the Constituent Assembly who wanted the name...

...to reflect the ancient pre-British and pre-Muslim era of a 'glorius' Hindu past.

The symbolic significance of 'Bharat' in the opening article was meant to suggest a sense of Hindu ownership of the new India- the India which was perceived to have achieved self-rule after...

...centuries of foreign rule.
The name Bharat signified the birth of a new India, with whose government and state the Hindus felt a sense of identification.

The word 'Union' in the opening article was also consciously preferred over 'Federation'.

It doesn't have direct Hindutva implications but once we understand the context of the use of the word, we can start seeing the Hindutva sentiments and arguments associated with this word.

The Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 had envisaged India as a loose federation with strong states and a weak centre.
This plan did not succeed for various reasons, the main one being the Congress's resistance to the idea of a federation with a weak centre.

Once the partition plan was accepted, the Indian political leadership (at least the majority) was relieved that the Muslim bargaining power had vanished and the centralising agenda could now be implemented without resistance.

Hindutva elements both before and after 1947 had been the most ardent proponents of strong centralisation and Union power.
Strong central power in the Indian constitutional framework and the Indian political structure is associated, in the Hindutva vision...

...with strong Indian Hindu nationhood.
Decentralisation and minority rights are viewed, in this vision, with suspicion as potential threats to that nationhood.

Article 25 (2)(b): providing for social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus.

This article fundamentally undermines the secular character of the state in favour of Hindus.

Even with a looser definition of secularism, the so-called Indian version of equal treatment of all religions, it violates secularism because of the clearly expressed special interest of the state in favour of 'social welfare and reform' of the Hindu religion?

Why should a secular state be concerned about the social welfare and reform of only one religion?
Why should a secular state be concerned with social welfare and reform of only Hindu temples?

It seems that the overriding concern behind these social reform measures was....

to prevent the exodus of the Dalits from the Hindu fold.
This was an instance of active state intervention to consolidate Hindu identity.

The State, for the first time, created a territorially unified body of Hindu law, transcending numerous regional divisions.

The Indian Constitutional Order of 1950 under Article 341 says: “No person who professes a religion different from the Hindu religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.”

This Order was amended in 1956 to include Sikhs, and again in 1990 to bring in Buddhists.

As things stand, Scheduled Caste status cannot be conferred on sections of the population who remain outside the "Hindu" or "Indic" category and thus the 'depressed' status is not religion-neutral.

Regardless of the social reality in Christianity and Islam, any affirmative action has been denied to members of these faiths for the past seventy years because the members of these faiths cannot be conferred "Dalit" status.

Article 48: The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.

The specific insertion of 'prohibiting slaughter of cows and calves' in the constitution, as one of the directive principles of state policy, was an unmistakable reflection of the religious preferences and powers of the dominant upper caste Hindus among the constitution makers.

This specific inclusion also meant the exclusion of the preferences of others for whom the cow did not signify what it did for some upper caste Hindu groups.

The political philosopher Pratap Mehta calls cow protection 'the most symbolically potent of Hindu demands.'

Article 343: The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script.

Article 351: Directive for development of the Hindi language.

The importance accorded to Hindi language and especially to the Devanagari script and the Sanskrit language in the constitution reflects the strong pro-Hindi and pro-Hindu bias of a very powerful section among the constitution makers.

The Hindi lobby was very powerful during the pre-1947 period but it became even more powerful after 1947.
The Hindi lobby had become so arrogant after 1947 that some of the Hindi fanatics opposed constitutional recognition of any other language apart from Hindi.

The aforementioned features of the constitution makes its secularism seriously Hindu-tainted.

It is time for the uncritical celebratory references to the secularism of India's constitution to cease and for the compromised nature of its secularism to be recognised.

Reference:
Hindu Bias in India's 'Secular' Constitution: probing flaws in the instruments of governance by Pritam Singh