Preamble

Preamble

During the national struggle our leaders indicated that in the constitutional set up in free India people would be granted certain rights. In fact, in the various schemes relating to future constitutional set up, there were references of particular rights that the people of India should be granted. The Commonwealth of India Bill (1925), the Nehru Committee Report (1928), the memorandum of the National Trade Union Federation submitted to the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reforms (1932- 33), the Memorandum submitted by M. Venkatarangaiah to the Sapru Committee and the Sapru Committee Proposals provided for various Fundamental Rights that the people of free India should get. The Constitution which lays down the basic structure of a nation's polity is built on the foundations of certain fundamental values. The vision of our founding fathers and the aims and objectives which they wanted to achieve through the Constitution are contained in the Preamble, the Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles.

Preamble

The framers of the Constitution sought to unite the vast country with its great diversity of languages and creeds within a common bond of constitutional justice based on the great ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity and justice. Framers showed an uncompromising respect for human dignity, an unquestioning commitment to equality and non-discrimination, and an abiding concern for the poor and the weak The Preamble through its noble words promised Justice, social, economic and political; Liberty of thought, expression, belief, freedom of faith and worship; Equality of status and of opportunity and to promote Fraternity, assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation. Speaking of the imperatives of social democracy,

Dr. Ambedkar said:

"it was, indeed, a way of life, which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life and which cannot be divorced from each other: Liberty cannot be divorced from equality; equality cannot be divorced from liberty. Nor can liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity. Without equality, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality without liberty would kill individual initiative. Without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of things."

The Socio-economic Agenda

The scheme of the Constitution for the realisation of the socio-economic agenda comprises of both the justiciable Fundamental Rights as well as the non-justiciable Directive Principles. The judicial contribution to the synthesis and the integration of the Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles in the process of "constitutionalising" social and economic rights has been crucial to the realisation of the Directive Principles not only as a means to effectuate Fundamental Rights but also as a source of laws for a welfare state.