I was reading about referendum. A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to vote on a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, or a law. Example would be scottish referendum as to whether scotland should be as separate country this referendum will take place on Thursday 18 September 2014. Now since we would need to amend the constitution of India to make it hindu rashtra I thought there could be a referendum. But then if you think you would know that Indians giving majority to NDA government would itself have acted as a referendum. So no need of a referendum. And another point to be noted is it is easier to create “Hindu Rashtra” because of Article 13(4) and Article 368(3). The reason is it only requires approval of 2/3rd majority of each House of Parliament (quorum being not less than half of the total membership of each House) for the Amendment of Part III Fundamental rights which also include the Right to practise any Religion of Choice (Article 15). Firstly to make a hindu rashtra, we will have to start right with the Preamble to the Constitution. Preamble could be amended by the Parliament under Article 368. We will have to drop the words “secular” and “democratic” from the description of the Republic. The words “justice, social, economic and political” will have to be deleted. “Liberty of thought, expression, belief and worship” will have to be dumped. “Equality of status and of opportunity” will have to be erased. And we must even abandon “fraternity, assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation”. Then After changing the Preamble, we will need to change the Fundamental Rights. The essential targets will be nine. Equality before the law and equal protection of the laws (Article 14). Prohibition of discrimination on grounds, inter alia of religion (Article 15). Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment (Article 16). Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion (Article 25). Freedom to manage religious affairs (Article 26). Freedom from payment of taxes for promotion of any religion (Article 27). Bar on religious instruction in any educational institution wholly maintained out of state funds, and freedom not to attend religious instruction or worship in state-recognised or partly state-aided educational institutions (Article 28). And the cultural and educational rights of minorities (Articles 29 and 30). Now let us analyse how many seats NDA has in Lok Sabha. NDA has 336 seats in Lok Sabha and 2/3 of 543 (Total Lok Sabha Seats) would be 362. So NDA would need another 26 seats in its support. But in Rajya Sabha NDA has only 64 seats out of a total of 250. So the major hurdle to make a hindu rashtra would be rajya sabha.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 07:28:25 +0000
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