A police complaint has been filed against Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale, accusing him of making “unconstitutional, inflammatory and divisive” comments and seeking legal action against him.
The complaint, filed by members of the Karnataka legal cell of the Indian Youth Congress, said that Hosabale’s recent comments seeking to remove the terms “socialist” and “secular” from the Preamble of the Indian Constitution were an “attack on the constitutional ethos” and an “incitement against the nation’s founding values”.
The complaint was filed at the Seshadripuram Police Station in Bengaluru on Sunday. While the police acknowledged the receipt of the complaint, no FIR was filed till the time of going to print.
“I am filing this complaint in the interest of protecting the sanctity of the Constitution of India and preserving public order and constitutional values as a dutiful citizen of India,” the complainant, Shreedhar MM, a representative of the Youth Congress, said.
“These remarks are not just ideational commentary. They are deliberate, provocative, and dangerous.”
The complaint said that Hosabale’s speech violated several provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and amounted to “an attempt to marginalize religious communities and promote disharmony”.
“These are not protected political speech,” the complainant wrote. “They are an incitement to constitutional subversion and fall within the purview of cognizable criminal offenses.”
The RSS leader stoked a political controversy last week, when, speaking at an event in Delhi on Thursday, he said, “During the Emergency, two words, secular and socialist, were added to the Constitution, which were not part of the original Preamble. Later, these words were not removed. Should they remain or not… a debate must happen on this. These two words were not in Dr Ambedkar’s Constitution. During the Emergency, the country had no functioning Parliament, no rights, no judiciary and yet these two words were added.”
{{/usCountry}}The RSS leader stoked a political controversy last week, when, speaking at an event in Delhi on Thursday, he said, “During the Emergency, two words, secular and socialist, were added to the Constitution, which were not part of the original Preamble. Later, these words were not removed. Should they remain or not… a debate must happen on this. These two words were not in Dr Ambedkar’s Constitution. During the Emergency, the country had no functioning Parliament, no rights, no judiciary and yet these two words were added.”
{{/usCountry}}The changes were among those made in the contentious 42nd Amendment, passed in 1976.
Citing his speech, the Congress workers sought legal action against Hosabale.
“Such attempts to publicly erode constitutional values must be treated with utmost seriousness and urgency,” the complainant added. “A clear message must be sent that no one is above the Constitution.”