Maharashtra Makes Reading Preamble Compulsory In Schools Amid Protests Over New Citizenship Law

Students in schools across Maharashtra will compulsorily read out the Preamble to the Constitution every day after morning prayers, state minister Varsha Gaikwad said on Tuesday. This will start from January 26 onwards. Maharashtra government has issued a circular in this regard stating that the Preamble is the part of the ‘sovereignty of constitution, welfare of all’ campaign. "Students will recite the preamble to the Constitution so that they know its importance. It is an old GR. But we will implement it from January 26," the school education minister said. Gaikwad is a Congress MLA and his party is part of Maha Vikas Aghadi government that also comprises Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Many Congress leaders have said that the "unconstitutional" CAA will not be allowed in Maharashtra.

A government resolution (GR) about reading the preamble during school assemblies was issued in February 2013 when the Congress-NCP government was in power. As per the circular dated January 21, 2020, the old GR was not being implemented.

People are reading the Preamble to protest against CAA

The move comes at a time when people opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the likely National Register of Citizens (NRC) have taken to reading the Preamble to register their protest against.

A group of lawyers on Monday read out the Preamble to the Constitution of India outside the Bombay High Court gate to protest the amended Citizenship Act. They were also protesting against ‘action’ being taken against people across the country for opposing it.

Over 50 lawyers, including senior counsels Navroze Seervai, Gayatri Singh and Mihir Desai, read out the preamble in unison, and later said no one can divide the country and its citizens on the basis of religion.

"We read the Preamble to reaffirm our faith in the Constitution of India and in its sovereign, secular and democratic nature and as a means to protest against some action taken across the country against people, which is against the Constitution," Seervai told reporters.