What is India declared as in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution?

The Preamble to a Constitution is an introductory declaration that states the nature, source of authority, and objectives of the State it establishes. For India, its exact wording fixes what kind of Republic India is; it is a separate matter from how governmental power is distributed between the Centre and the States, or how local self-government is organised, both of which are dealt with elsewhere in the Constitution.

As originally adopted in 1950, the Preamble declared India a Sovereign Democratic Republic. The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 inserted two further words into that declaration, giving the Preamble its present text: India is declared a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic. These four descriptive words, in this order, together with ‘Republic’, form the Preamble's exact declaration of India's nature.

Checking the two source texts independently confirms the count: the 1950 original supplies ‘Sovereign’ and ‘Democratic Republic’, and the 1976 amendment supplies the additional ‘Socialist’ and ‘Secular’ — together all four words are accounted for, with none left over and none missing.

• Federal, Panchayati Raj, Republican Government — Panchayati Raj is the system of rural local self-government under Part IX, added by the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992; it is a governance institution, not one of the Preamble's descriptive words for the State.

• Socialist, Panchayati Raj, Democratic Republic — keeps two genuine Preamble words but places Panchayati Raj, a local self-government term, where the Preamble instead uses one of its own descriptive words.

• Unitary, Parliamentary, Federal State — these terms describe how governmental power is structured and distributed between the Centre and the States, and the form of government — a separate constitutional question from the Preamble's own descriptive words for the nature of the State.

The option reading Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic is therefore the Preamble's declaration of India's nature.