Mr. Vice-President, it is not without some emotion that I rise to speak a few words on this amendment of Mr. Kamath. I am sure my honourable Colleagues in this House will have no doubt as to the purport of what I am going to say here. I have made references to this solemn subject more than once before this House, and so it is not without satisfaction that I notice and wholeheartedly approve of the suggestion or the amendment of Mr. Kamath. Nevertheless Sir, accepting and welcoming this amendment, I cannot help feeling that far too great a significance to the “official”, to the “Constitutional” aspect of it, has been given to this very moderate suggestion, by some of the speakers that have preceded me. If I may be permitted to say so, our honourable Friend Mr. Munshi struck the right note and put matters in the right proportion. What does this amendment propose to do? Does this amendment commit the Constitution or the Constitution-making body here to a solemn and unequivocal profession of belief in God and in God apprehended by a concept clearly defined and unanimously held? If it were so, objection might have been raised to it, but no such thing is implied here. What is asked here is this: when the most honoured position in our country is being given by the choice of this country to a man of outstanding personality, ability and character, we want him to come to the threshold of that office and to make a promise of service to the country in the manner that is most binding and most solemn that we can think of; we want him to draw his strength from the deepest fountains and springs of action within him for the service of his country. And knowing that the vast majority of our countrymen, Hindus or Muslims or Christians or Parsees or Sikhs draw their moral strength from trust in the Supreme Being, it gives to this chosen, this exceptional man the option of promising service to the country in that Sacred Name if he so desires. We want to give him the opportunity of making what is in his eyes the most solemn and the most binding promise. We do not impose it upon him. If there is someone who for some reason or other does not want to take that particular form, an alternative form is suggested to him. All that the Constitution-makers and we here imply by this amendment is that we accept the fact that in our country the vast majority of men are believers in God and that almost certainly, anyone who would come to this exalted officer would be moved to fulfil the functions of that office most faithfully if he promised to do so in the name of Almighty God. Taking this for a fact, we merely register that fact but make no corporate profession. I do not see therefore why this should be construed as opposed to the spirit of our Secular Constitution. Secondly, even a Secular Constitution, as Mr. Munshi pointed out, is not a Godless Constitution. It is not in opposition to the very notion of God. Only it makes no choice as between this or that particular profession, or religious section, but it does look with sympathy upon the convictions, the feelings, the desires, the hopes and aspirations of the entire people. It would not be true to the spirit of those people if it ignored this profound reality, the belief of all our people in God. To my honourable Friends who asked us, ‘Have we got a uniform and clear notion of what God is before we permit the introduction of this word in our Constitution?‘ May I say, ‘Is there anyone who is not aware in a broad and general way of what we mean by this word?‘ Is it necessary to enter into the discussions of Philosophers and Metaphysicians and to understand their subtle distinctions between this or that concept before accepting this term in so far as it stands for the Supreme Spiritual Reality that is behind this material and transitory world? We are making here an appeal to the eternal and everlasting foundation of all reality behind this passing, this temporal world. And in appealing to that, we are all one, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Sikhs, all of us knowing that above and behind what we see in time and in space, there is something that is unchangeable, Something that is eternal,–one that works for justice and peace and goodness and harmony. Our deepest instincts of brotherliness, of order, of justice, of law, of progress, are founded upon and inspired and sustained by that conviction and that Reality. My honoured colleagues will, therefore, accept this broad and general assumption as sufficient for the admission of this amendment, and permit us to include it as one of the forms by which the President will take office. In doing so, we are not cheapening the concept of God. We are not imposing it upon all and sundry, and at all times and in all places. But here, on the threshold of a most sacred and most solemn duty, the chosen leader of our country, presumed to be almost always a believer in God, is asked, if he is a believer, to promise in His sacred Name, and with all the strength of his soul and the force of his convictions to fulfil the duties that are imposed upon him. Can we doubt for a moment, that if we word that affirmation in that way, all that is deepest in him will respond to it, and that he is bound to fulfil that duty in a manner which he will not be inspired to do if a less compelling forms were used?
