Meanwhile, since we failed to get any official response from the ministry, which published the ad, it would be speculative to substantiate any motive behind the move. To give the government the benefit of doubt, it may have just used the original version of the Preamble for purely aesthetic purposes, in which case, it is not illegal to do so. However, a statement from the ministry is more than due to set the record straight. Given that the ministry is representative of the country and the government, it could have been more careful. At a time where optics and symbolic gestures have become key strategies of the Modi government to communicate its agenda, the omission of the word “secular” in a government ad does not seem bright. It would be interesting to see if R-day ads carrying the Preamble under the United Progressive Alliance also carried such omissions.