Indian Constitution secular but not atheist or agnostic: Kerala High Court judge Justice Devan Ramachandran

The Constitution of India is neither atheist nor agnostic though secularsim is ingrained in its fabric, Kerala High Court judge Justice Devan Ramachandran recently said..Justice Ramachandran opined Indians are generally religious and believe in God and pointed out that the right to worship, profess and propagate religion can be seen in several sections of the Constitution.“Secularism does not have to be specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Secularism is something that is included in Constitution already. It is very simple, look at the Preamble. See liberty, it talks about peace, thought, belief, faith, and worship. Please see Article 19(1) (a), it talks about speech and expression. Please go back to article 25 and 26, which talks about your right to worship and to profess as well as propagate religion. So Indian Constitution is not atheist, not even agnostic. We are Indians and Indians are generally religious, we believe in god and worship,” Justice Ramachandran said..The judge made these observations while speaking on the topic of "Federalism in Indian Constitution" at a Constitution day event held on November 26 at the Muvattupuzha Court complex..He said that knowing and understanding the Constitution is both the greatest weapon and greatest shield available to citizens.“The reason that we are not understanding who are we and what we are is that we don’t understand our Constitution. Constitution is our own being. The Constitution is our greatest weapon, the greatest shield Constitution against anything that you perceive to be illegal or unlawful. We can’t live as an Indian who forgets the Constitution,” he said.Pointing out that the people themselves are the sovereign, Justice Ramachandran stressed that public officers should work for the people with consciousness and morality of the Constitution.“We are the sovereign; we are ruling ourselves and the leaders are the ones we choose. There is no difference being the Central and State government as long as a citizen is concerned because both of these are the representatives we have chosen. There wont be a conflict if we think in this sense. When our representatives do things for us, there is no need to praise them as if they have done a big thing for us. Please understand nobody does anything for you, you do it for yourself, it is a collective consciousness that is now in operation. The public officer should have consciousness and morality of the Constitution and not his own,” Justice Ramachandran said.