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Introduction: Sixty Years of Growth: Civil Rights and SocioEconomic Justice in India
The study of the Indian Constitution is an imperative for students of Indian history, political science, and law. Law makers in India draw their experiences, ideas and principals as well as laws of codification from the system of values enshrined in the Constitution. Social transformation in the first instance, leading to revolution, was the avowed objective of the framers of the Constitution. Mostly drawn from the ranks of the new Indian meritocracy, and also from the old Indian aristocracy, indeed in the truest sense of the term natural leaders, the Constituent Assembly dealt with the principle of social revolution as judiciously and with as much wisdom as one would show at the time of the independence when the new Indian rulers inherited a plundered economy and a desperately poor population. This course will deal with the origins of the social revolution, its course and development in the first sixty years of the emergence of the Indian nation. Granville Austin charts this period as the period of growth of civil rights in India [Granville Austin, Indian Constitution: The Cornerstone of a Nation]. I will seek to shift the focus to the development of socio-economic justice. While most of the articles in the Constitution deal with the attempt to foster this revolution, the core of the commitment to social revolution lies in Part III and IV [Fundamental Rights or negative obligations and Directive Principles of State Policy or positive obligations]. These two are called the conscience of the Constitution. In the first part I will discuss the origins or the historical antecedents of the principle of social and socio-economic justice. In the second module I will discuss the roots of socialist thought and the development of socialism within the context of the national movement which was later enshrined in the Indian Constitution. I will discuss the phase of socialist development in India.
2. Historical Antecedents of Social and Socio-Economic Justice in the Civil Rights Movement:
The roots of the two parts of the Constitution are to be found in Indias struggle for independence, and the search according to some historians in the tree of liberty. The Fundamental Rights are those rights of citizens or those negative obligations of the state to prevent the encroachment upon individual liberty. They are negative in the sense of the notion of negative freedom, as enumerated by Sir Isaiah Berlin in his Two Concepts of Liberty. This principle was popular since the eighteenth century and since the drafting of the Bill of Rights of the American Constitution. They represent a liberal tradition. They have their origins in the necessity to frame principles to protect the individual minorities against the [a] caprices of the state, through [b] arbitrary and pre-judicial state action as 1
well as the need to frame articles to protect individuals against the [c] actions of other private citizens.
good, i.e. between preserving the property and privilege of the few and bestowing benefits on the many so that the powers of all men are liberated for contributions to the common good of the nation. In negative liberty I am normally said to be free to the degree to which no man or body of men interferes with my activities. Political liberty in this sense is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others. If I am prevented by others from what I could otherwise do: I am to that degree unfree; and if this area is contracted by other men beyond a certain minimum, I can be described as being coerced, or it may be enslaved. One lacks political liberty and freedom only if one is prevented from attaining a goal by human beings. Negative liberty consists in not being prevented from choosing what I want to do. [Berlin, Four Essays, Ch. 1: Two Concepts of Liberty, pp. 122-3].
vital in this regard. Nehru himself, despite his socialism, was inclined towards accepting a liberal constitutional framework of governance that could inform the structures of a welfare state. He was not a doctrinaire socialist. Evidence of his and other framers proclivity towards liberalism can be found in the [a] right to work; [b] right to living wages; [c] right to basic education and [d] other welfare requirements that were categorized as non-justiciable Directive Principles of State Policy. Authors have said that at the beginning of the Indian nation, the Constitution marked a triumph of benevolent liberalism. [F.A. Machery and Maneesha Tikekar, Constitution, Polity and Society: A Study of Indian Political System, Bombay, 1987, pp. 55-6]. The two leaders who were responsible for this centrist shift were J.L. Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel. Patels conservative influence possibly did have a moderating influence on the radical left wing views of Nehru. The other two in Austins Oligarchy were Rajendra Prasad and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. They had their differences, especially with regard to the approach and modus operandi of the implementation of the Indian Constitution, but their attitudes were uniformly rooted in a humanitarian outlook.
5. Requirements for the Implementation of Socialist Principles: 5.1. Centralization: The framers of the Indian Constitution opted for a centralized
Constitution to protect the principle of socialism, social regeneration, democratic institutions and aspects of parliamentary governments which were different aspects of social regeneration. The immediate reason for such a decision was the nature of human material that the fledgling nation-state had at its command. For instance when the interim government took office in September 1946 near famine conditions existed in parts of Madras. The overall national rise in food prices, low grain reserves, a conflict between the administration and the market, and also between surplus and deficit provinces led the Centre to formulate and institute a national policy on the methods of the control of grain supplies, prices and destitution. By centralized planning or centralization, the framers implied [i] the development of modern agricultural methods, transport, communications, heavy and light industry, electric power and technical advancement in general. It was also suggested that for technical and cultural advancement, advanced and path breaking scientific research was needed. All this was to benefit village society. [ii] Another requirement for the success of the social revolution was the adoption of the promise of direct elections by adult suffrage. The demand for adult suffrage had been placed by the Congress since the 1920s. Nehru believed that direct elections rather than indirect elections serve as pillars of social revolution, since they imply the fullest implementation of the promise of democracy. Through adult suffrage the basic structures of the Indian society could be rebuilt. It would help in bringing consciousness and awareness to individuals in the villages. The objective of creating new allegiances, national instead of local, by definition, caste, and purely local loyalties. [iii] A third requirement for the success of the social revolution was the success of economic progress, i.e. the guaranteeing of food security, clothing and shelter.
5.2. Direct and Indirect Elections: The reason why framers chose direct over
indirect elections was that in the case of indirect elections, candidates would often have to adhere to traditional and ethnic loyalties, which had been and indeed would have been 4
detrimental to national progress and unity. Indirect elections would have entrenched caste at the village level, retaining power in the hands of the traditional upper castes in the village societies or the handful of economically mobile and ascendant minorities. Traditional moorings responsible for the creation of local issues would have dominated the economic scene, such as the issue of the DMK in Madras. In the event of indirect elections the creation of a national ethos via a national consciousness would not have been possible. It is doubtful if the peasantry gains from direct elections representing the interests of the nation. But direct elections at least have a binding effect on the electoral system in the country, which ultimately benefits the peasantry. The second reason for the rejection of direct elections by the Assembly members was the realization that direct elections might help/protect village societies from getting fragmented even more. A system of values and structures of local governance had already become schematic and had started to fall prey to increasing factionalism. The Assembly members felt, perhaps not entirely incorrectly, that the Gandhian notion of Panchayati Raj would give excessive encouragement to party politics, which in a non-totalitarian state system necessarily produces groups organized around political programs meant to serve narrow and often sectarian political ends. And when the rival political parties opt out of the race for the exploitation of dissention in the villages, they are misused and captured for rival factions for local ends. This was the view given by Ashoka Mehta in The Opposition of New States. So there was a qualitative rejection of the panchayat system in Indian politics and elections for the success of the principles of socio-economic justice.
5.3. Panchayati Raj: It was argued that the utility of Panchayati Raj system should
be restricted and applied to purely administrative functions by the drafting of a direct parliamentary constitution. Panchayat development through the productive use of Article 40 should be encouraged, it was felt. But this case even there were objections Jayaprakash Narayan said that the panchayats at the administrative level even was not entirely possible, if there was a direct electoral system at the centre, due to the atomism of the parliamentary society. There is an emphasis on individualism and party competition which disrupts the community which will act as a dampener on the principle and ideal of Panchayati Raj. The panchayats are/will be unable to function in the wholesome manner that everyone desires. J.P.Narayanan said this in A Phase of Reconstruction of the Indian Polity. The opposite view came from S.K. Dey in his Panchayati Raj where he said that it is ignorant and silly to try and impose artificial unity on villages, especially since opposition parties provide the very spark of life. The first aim of the policy makers and the state should be to bring the villages out of their stagnation and channelise the released energies of the people into constructive efforts through panchayats.
Assembly to socialism. Most of these members ranged from old style Marxists to Gandhian socialists to conservative capitalists with their brand of social regeneration and economic equality. The only exceptions were the nascent and much younger group of radical communists who actively sought to disassociate themselves from Fabian socialism, or Laskite vision of politics. This ragtag band of socialists formed the CSP, which identified socialism with democracy. [Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, Oxford, 1966]. 1. Nehrus flirtation with socialism started from his days in Cambridge, where he read Marx for the first time. He made a trip to Europe and Russia in 1926-7 which convinced him of the great good fortune of living under a socialist regime. The coming of the Bolshevik Revolution [1917-18] and its after effects in Russia also had a galvanizing effect on the way Nehru thought. 2. Nehrus closeness to Fabian socialism was also due to his fondness for Dr. Annie Besant. Besant was one of the original Fabians and theosophists to have influenced Indian minds in the first twenty years of the 20th century. She succeeded in impacting the nationalists through her Home Rule League Movement, a plan for which was declared in 1915 in the Madras based newspaper New India and Commonweal and the Bombay based paper Young India [early 1916]. Besants League had an all India character. It was formally established in September 1916. Its headquarter was in Adyar [Madras] with 200 odd local branches [132 of them in Madras Presidency alone. Its dominance was evident in the membership drive 27, 000. It had influenced not only Nehru, but also Chaudhuri Khaliquzzaman [Lucknow], Satyamurthy [Madras], Jitendralal Banerjee [Calcutta], Jamnadas Dwarkadas, Umar Sobhani, Shankerlal Banker and Indulal Yagnik from Bombay and Gujerat. The League under Besant, with a membership of 26, 000 held meetings at Shantarams Chawl in an area inhabited by government employees and industrial workers. The meetings would comprise of 10, 000 12, 000 activists. These meetings were the first examples of socialist stirrings in India. [Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885-1947, Delhi, 1985]. 3. A third source of socialist ideas for the new Indian Congress leadership was the passing of the Commonwealth of India Bill, which was drafted in India, revised by the Labour Party leaders in London, and accepted unanimously by the Executive Committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party. It had its first readings in the House of Commons in December 1925. Although the Bill failed after the defeat of the Labour government and the return of the conservatives, it had succeeded in altering the perceptions of the British and Indians alike with regard to the status of India from a colony to a self governing dominion. It also impacted the question of whether India should follow the socialist path or not. The memorandum accompanying the Bill said that they sought an honourable agreement which the British had denied the Americans after the American War of Independence. [Bipan Chandra et al., India After Independence, New Delhi, 1999; see also B. Shiva Rao, [ed.], The Framing of Indias Constitution: Select Documents, Vol. 1, New Delhi, 1996].
This was so because India needed vast capital resources and also had to import in 1947 foreign machinery and advanced technology to an under-developed country. 4. The fourth arena where the socialist commitment is evident was the envisaging of the basic restructuring of agrarian relations. Intermediate rent-receivers, such as the zamindars and other levels of landlords were to be abolished. They said that agriculture was to be based on peasant proprietorship. In this sense, the followers of Nehru and socialists were giving in to communist principles, i.e. principles of dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. 5. Planning was another aspect of socialism as envisaged in the economic critique. Systematic state intervention was advocated. Massive development of the public sector was widely interpreted and accepted in the 1920s. The state was to develop large scale and key industries. In addition, they were also to build the infrastructure fore the new nationalist projects, which included [a] power, [b] irrigation, [c] roads, and [d] water supply for which foreign help was to be sought. In the resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic Programmes adopted at the Karachi Session of the INC in 1931 it was stated that the state in independent India shall control key industries and services, mineral resources, railways, waterways, shipping and other means of public transport. [Pattabhi Sitaramayya, The History of the Indian Congress, 1885-1935, p. 779]. This resolution had the support of Vallabhbhai Patel, J.L. Nehru, and Gandhi. The Congress also sponsored the founding of the National Planning Committee [1938] to promote planning as an instrument of integrated and comprehensive development. The Indian capitalists formulated the Bombay Plan in 1943. The only voice of discord which questioned the dominant socialist viewpoint was that of Gandhi. Through the 1930s he held the view that machine industry was not an unacceptable, but it still displaces human labour as well as homestead. He also suggested that all large scale industries should be owned by the state and not private individuals. His accommodative approach and his coming halfway induced the socialists to accept the Gandhian perspective on cottage and small scale industries, which found full reflection in the second Five Year Plan.
There were broadly three arenas where equality was debated in the Resolution: [a] economic empowerment through [a.i] free primary compulsory education; [a.ii] lowering of taxes for the poor and the members of the lower income groups; [a.iii.] reduction of salt taxes as well as land revenue; [a.iv.] giving debt relief and creating provisions for cheap credit to agriculturists; [a.v.] protection of tenants rights and abolition of landlordism; [a.vi.] providing of land to the tillers; [a.vii.] Workers right to adequate living wage; [a.viii.] shorter working hours for the workers; [a.ix.] the peasants right to organize themselves; and [a.x.] the reform of the law and order machinery. It was stated in the resolution that all this was needed for the achievement of real economic freedom. A second aspect of equality and socialism as discussed in the Karachi Resolution was the national movements opposition to all forces of inequality, discrimination and opposition based on gender and caste. The principle found its way into the successive drafts of the Indian Constitution. Promise of upliftment of women and the lower castes was envisioned. The reforms agenda included improvement of the social position of women including the granting of right to work and education. Equal political rights were also guaranteed. Women for the first time allowed to vote. The passages of the Hindu Code Bill was made easier through a prolonged debate in the 1940s and 1950s. It was passed in the 1950s. The struggle for the abolition of casteism was also written into the Karachi Resolution. This was the third aspect of equality. The abolition of untouchability became a major task since the 1920s. Gandhi advocated the total abolition of casteism. This awareness led to the mooting of the proposals to bring reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Constituent Assembly debates. The Karachi Resolution was the first such resolution to directly address socialism as a requirement for the emergence of the idelogical framework of the new India. Even though the most visible face in that ideological framework was that of J.L. Nehru and his fellow comrades in the CSP, the person who decisively influenced him was Gandhi. With regard to the question of gender relations and caste, Gandhis views mattered the most. Even with regard to economy Gandhi had a moderating influence on the way the resolution was framed.
9. Development of Socialism: Stage 1: The next step in the development of socialism in the Indian Constitution came
with the development of the idea that the conference method had to be replaced by a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of the widest possible franchise. There was a shift from constitutionalism and council politics to democracy based on the principle of elections. J.L. Nehru was the first national leader to articulate this view in 1933, borrowing some of his ideas from M.N. Roy, the Marxist ideologue. In June 1934 the Congress Working Committee rejected the white paper presented by the British government on further constitutional reforms and opted for Nehrus plan of opting for a constitution drawn up by a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of adult suffrage or as near to it as possible. This was stated in the Text Resolution. This demand, which reflected the leadership commitment to socialism, was continually repeated through the 1930s, especially in the Congress partys manifesto for the 1936-7 elections. On 27 28 Feb. 1937, the Congress legislators were reminded before assuming office that they were 9
bound by the Faizpur Congress Resolution which had demanded the establishment of the Constituent Assembly based on the principle of adult franchise as soon as possible.
Stage 2: The Party convened the Convention of Congress Legislators and AICC
members at Delhi. Nehru was in the chair. He said that the goal of the party was to move towards Panchayati Raj, the responsibility for which was to fall on the Constituent Assembly. Nehru said that such a body would be a Grand Panchayat of the nation, elected by all our people. Thus yet again he was committing himself to the promotion of socialism through the advocacy of Panchayati Raj, ensuring the widest possible franchise at the rural level, to be safeguarded by the Assembly for its inclusion in the Indian Constitution.
Stage 3: Through 1937, Nehru kept up his demand. At times he would seem impatient,
which was his second nature but he eventually succeeded. Eventually he managed to convince Acharya Kripalani to prepare a draft resolution and pass it through the Working Committee of the Congress. The Resolution which was later passed by all the Congress provinces Bombay, Madras, UP, Bihar, Orissa, CP and NWFP stated that the Act of 1935 should be repealed and replaced by the Constitution of free India framed by the Assembly which would include the demands of elections on the basis of adult franchise. A resolution to this effect was passed on Sept 17 1937 in the Central Legislative Assembly. The veteran Congress leader S. Satyamurthy introduced it. This demand was repeated in the Haripura Session of the Congress in Feb. 1938. Through the war years [1939-45] Gandhi advocated the cause of adult franchise. In the article entitled The Only Way he said that the cause of democratic swaraj lay only through a properly constituted Assembly. He wanted a body based on unadulterated suffrage including both men and women which was used to fight communalism and bring mass political education.
Stage 4: Through the World War II years the British government resisted Indias
demand for a Constituent Assembly and all notions of equality and socialism in an institutionalized form. The government declared a state of emergency all over India, and the administration of the whole country was left in the hands of the Governor General, Governors, and their permanent staff. Gandhi and Nehru came together at a meeting of the CWC held at Wardha [15-19 April 1940], where Gandhi emerged as the dominant voice, saying that the establishment of the Constituent Assembly only after the achievement of independence was wrong. He refuted Nehrus view. He said that first there had to be the Assembly and then independence. What followed in quick succession was the August Offer of Lord Linlithgow [1940] by which Indians were given the responsibility to frame their own constitution. He also offered to set up a body of representatives of the principal elements of Indias national life in order to devise the framework of the new constitution. The August Offer still did not spell out how this body was to be constituted whether by direct or indirect elections based on adult franchise or by nomination. But both Gandhi and Nehru had made one condition clear the Assembly had to be eventually set up and the principle of election had to be accepted in full measure. No where were they refuting their earlier commitment to socialism.
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Stage 5: Within the next two years there was a democratic change in British attitudes.
This was due to two reasons: 1. The British forces had suffered disastrous defeats in difficult theatres of war and 2. The international situation had become so unfavourable to Britain with Japan almost at the doorstep of the Indian Empire that she had to seek the support of the popular forces in India. With this end in view, Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the British government was sent to India for a special mission for finding a just and final solution to the Indian political problem. The Cripps Mission envisaged complete transfer of power to Indians after the war, a partial transfer during the war. In return, the British wanted wholehearted prosecution of the war effort. The INA declined the Cripps offer. [M.V. Pylee, An Introduction to the Constitution of India]. The proposals of the Cripps Mission, as the constitutional concessions were called, spelt out the procedure for the establishment of the Constituent Assembly. It stated that immediately after the declaration of the results of the provincial elections after the end of the war, all members of the lower house of the provincial legislatures were to meet as a single electoral college and proceed to the election of a constitution making body by a system of proportional representation. The determination of the framers to integrate the Indian states into the overall political system thus bringing parity in representation was evident. It stated that the Indian states shall be invited to appoint representatives in the same proportion to their total population as in the case of the representatives of British India as a whole and with the same powers as British Indian members. The principle of socialism was extended to integration as well. Proportional representation tied in well with socialist values advocated by Nehru. The 1940s started as a high noon of socialism, having been initiated through the 1930s.
Stage 6: The following stage came with the arrival of the Cabinet Mission Plan [24
March 1946]. The Cabinet Mission consisted of 3 members of the British government Sir Stafford Cripps, Lord Pethick Lawrence, and A.V. Alexander. From the third week of March to the middle of June 1945 the three British ministers had a series of conferences with important political leaders from India representing every important party. The Plan announced its own scheme of setting up a constitution making machinery which would be based on elections by adult franchise. The planners also acknowledged that such a step would take a long time to evolve and for the time being it was decided the newly elected legislative assembly of the provinces were to elect the members of the Constituent Assembly on the basis of one representative for roughly one million of the population. Sikh and Muslim legislators were to elect their quota on the basis of their population. The Mission also proposed that the Constituent Assembly after meeting to elect its chairman should divided into sections. The provincial representatives in their respective sections should meet and decide on a constitution or a group constitution. Then representatives of all the provinces should come together along with representatives of the Princely States to settle the Union Constitution. The Union was to deal with foreign affairs, defence and communications.
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Part III: The Fundamental Rights: 10. Formation of the Advisory Committee for the Drafting of the Fundamental Rights:
The Cabinet Mission laid down in its 16 May Plan that the Constituent Assembly should have an Advisory Committee whose duty it would be to report to the Assembly on The list of Fundamental Rights, the clauses for the protection of minorities and a scheme for the administration of the tribal and excluded areas and to advise whether these Rights should be incorporated in the Provincial, Group or Union Constitution. [Cabinet Mission Plan, Para 20, Gwyer and Appadorai, p. 283; see also Para 19 [IV], Second Five Year Plan, pp. 2223]. The Cabinet Mission recommendations and the intentions coincided: the Working Committee of the Congress drew up a resolution establishing the Advisory Committee at a meeting of December 1946 [Minutes of the meeting, Prasad papers, File 16-P/45-6-7] the day before the Constituent Assembly voted to create the Advisory Committee. It was originally to have been elected by the Assembly, but instead the Congress leadership arranged that the members be chosen in off-the floor conferences held between Assembly leaders and the chief members of each minority group. For this reason the various religious minorities, the Scheduled Castes and the backward tribes were all proportionally represented on the committee and, because the minorities had been consulted when the committee was being established, their representatives were of their own choosing. Twelve well known influential Congressmen [including two women] were also members of the committee representing a general category. Among them were V.B. Patel, who became the chairman of the Advisory Committee, and Acharya Kripalani, who was to be the Chairman of the Fundamental Rights Subcommittee. Five others from this group were also members of the Rights Subcommittee the members of the Rights Subcommittee were the two ladies, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and Hansa Mehta, Acharya Kripalani, Minoo Masani, K. T. Shah, A.K. Ayyar, K. M. Munshi, Sardar Harnam Singh, Maulana Azad, B.R. Ambedkar, J. Daulatram, and K.M. Panikkar who was appointed to the committee to represent the Princely States by President Prasad in March, but who sat with the committee only from 14 April onward. Three of the members already had some familiarity with the rights issues. K. T. Shah and K.M. Munshi had both been members of the Congress Experts Committee, which had drafted a list of rights for the Assemblys guidance. Ambedkar had attended the Round Table Conference and had taken a strong interest in the rights issue. At the subcommittees first meeting, the members chose Kripalani as Chairman. When the Subcommittee began drafting the rights in March 1947, the members found that although there were some disagreement on techniques, there was little disagreement on principles; history had done much of the members work for them. What 12
disagreement there was centred primarily around the classic predicament of the degree to which personal liberty should be infringed to secure governmental stability and public peace, of how conditional the statement of a right should be. The members of the Subcommittee quickly decided that the Fundamental Rights should be justiciable, that they should be included in the Constitution, and decided what form these rights should take. The Rights to Freedom were drafted with only brief argument over the wording of the proviso to the Right to Freedom of Association. The provision abolishing untouchability was adopted with equal swiftness, as were the provisions giving protection against double jeopardy, ex-post facto laws, etc. That Fundamental Rights, while protecting individual freedom, were not to prevent state intervention in the interests of the social revolution became apparent in the drafting of several rights provisions. It had long been evident for example that a clause protecting freedom of conscience and the profession and practice of religion would be in the Constitution. Yet in the Subcommittee meetings, Amrit Kaur opposed allowing the free practice of religion since this would include such anti-social practices as purdah and sati and because it might invalidate such secular gains as Window Remarriage Act. Ayyar came to her support and cited the example of the 1935 Act, when the British Parliament had refused to insert any provision that might interfere with social reform. [Quoted from a letter from Ayyar to B.N Rau, dtd. 4 April 1947 ] This protest had its effect: the Advisory Committee altered the Subcommittees provisions and in its own report laid down that the right to freely practice ones own religion should not prevent the state from making laws providing for social welfare and reform, a provision that was carried into the Constitution. Equality before the law was another right that might have been thought to be unexceptionable. Yet, Ayyar believed that it could hamper reform. It might prevent the passage of laws differentiating between men and women factory workers, thereby denying women special protection. It might also prevent treating children and adults differently in criminal courts. Equality before the law, Ayyar maintained, was a fine principle of English law, but it was self defeating when written into the Constitution. He preferred using the phrase that no person should be denied the equal protection of the law. The Advisory Committee heeded Ayyars advice, for despite the contrary precedents in the Nehru Report and in the Fundamental Rights Subcommittees report, the clause in the Advisory Committees Interim Report read that no person should be denied equality before the law and this wording was carried into the Constitution. The conflict between individual liberty and the states responsibility was also evident in the provision concerning forced labour. The Nehru Report had a thinly disguised clause aimed at eliminating it. And the Fundamental Rights Subcommittee found that they were in no disagreement about abolishing forced labour, begar, [a form of forced labour practiced particularly in the United Provinces] and traffic in human beings, but they disapproved strongly on the question of involuntary labour in the form of military and social conscription. The protection of minorities took two forms. First was the inclusion in the Fundamental Rights of the Freedom of Religion, and other such provisions, plus those special provisions relating to the protection of script and culture, the rights of minorities to maintain their own educational institutions, and so on, that appear in the Cultural and
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Educational Rights of the Constitution. Protection of this kind had, as we know, long been part of the rights demand, and this continued to be the case in 1947. Minority groups of all kinds Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Sanatanists, Shia, Muslims, Harijans, Kumaonis, linguist groups and so on wrote letters to the Assembly asking that special consideration be given to their problems and interests protected. Although the Advisory Committee and Subcommittees took note of these sentiments, they found that minority groups were well represented among the Assemblys members In April, using replies as a model, the Subcommittee framed a list of minority rights and included the list in its report to the Advisory Committee. On 17, 18 and 19 April the Minorities Subcommittee under the Chairmanship of H.C. Mookerjee considered the minorities provisions of the report and on 19 April sent its own report to the Advisory Committee, having made few changes of substance in the Rights Subcommittees recommendations A most important exception to this was the question of language which it had been thought at should be included in the Fundamental Rights. The Advisory Committee, however, omitted it from the Interim Report on Rights, and the subject ultimately came to be treated in a separate part of the Constitution. The second type of protection of the minority interests was the inclusion in the Constitution but not within the Fundamental Rights of the provision providing for adequate minority representation in legislatures and the civil services and other forms of special considerations. These provisions were a good deal more controversial that the issue of safeguards for religion and cultural rights, where there was little important difference of opinion. The matter of reservation, representation, electorates, etc., was close to the heart of the minorities and involved the crucial questions of constitutional and social philosophy Although some Assembly member had doubts about enfranchising the masses, in general the right to vote was considered fundamental. The Fundamental Rights Subcommittee unanimously voted that there should be universal suffrage and secret and periodic elections. The Advisory Committee, when considering this provision in the Subcommittees report, agreed with the principle, but recommended that these provisions find another place in the Constitution. The Assembly adopted the suggestion and provided for adult suffrage in Article 326 of Part XV on elections. Having made the Fundamental Rights justiciable, the Subcommittee next included within the Rights the legal methods by which they would be secured. To do this they adopted the English device of prerogative writs, or directions in the form of writs. Munshi, Ambedkar, and Ayyar strongly and actively favoured the inclusion of the right to constitutional remedies and the other members of the Subcommittee agreed with them. Munshi in his draft constitution had included two clauses relating to prerogative writs; one laid down that every citizen had the right to move for a writ for a civil right, and the second named these habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, and certiorari. Munshi explained to the Subcommittee members that in England the prerogative writs were an extremely powerful device. He believed that they had been brought to India by Judge Impey who, when drafting the charter, gave the Calcutta Supreme Court the powers of the Kings Bench Division in England. Ayyar, although favouring the principle of writs, preferred supplanting them with directions in the nature of writs, for in England, he said, these directions had proved to be the more convenient device for the protection of rights. The decision to include prerogative writs in the Constitution was taken by the Rights Subcommittee at its meeting on 29 March 1947. At this time Ayyar moved that all High
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Courts and the Supreme Court should have the power to issue writs of habeas corpus. This suggestion ultimately led to the inclusion in the constitution of a provision saying that Parliament could empower any court in India to issue these writs in the same manner as had previously been done by the Supreme Court and certain High Courts. Although ordinary remedies exist for the protection of rights, the prerogative writs have put teeth in the Fundamental Rights provision. The writs have become popular for they are commonly believed to be the cornerstone of freedom and liberty. The impetus this belief had given towards the achievement of the social revolution has, one expects, been very great.
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embodying general rights, would apply to the Union, while a second list, consisting of relatively less consequential rights, would be enforceable only by the province and the states. The Subcommittee heartily disagreed with the proposition, believing that the rights must be uniformly applied. A few days later, Munshi suggested that both the provincial governments and central government be given the power to suspend these rights to freedom in times of emergency. The majority of the subcommittee balked at this, however, rejecting the idea as one which would make the rights illusory and refused to incorporate the proviso in its draft right of 3 April. This decision so perturbed Ayyar that he wrote a letter to B. N. Rau who in his position as Constitutional Advisor usually attended the meetings of the Rights Subcommittee. The recent happenings in different parts of India have convinced me more than ever, wrote Ayyar, referring to unrest in Assam and Bengal, and to communal riots in the Punjab and the NWFP, that all the Fundamental Rights guaranteed under the Constitution must be subject to public order, security and safety, though such a provision may to some extent neutralize the effect of the rights guaranteed under the Constitution. [Letter dtd. 4 April 1947; Ayyar papers] Ayyar followed up this letter with a note to members of the Subcommittee in which he suggested that if the rights were not made liable to suspension in times of emergency, the words sincerity and defence of the state or national security be added to the already existing proviso.
though from the beginning there were dissenting voices such as that of T. T. Krishnamachari, who called the Directives a veritable dustbin of sentiments [ CAD, VII, 12, 583], it was an influential enough body to give shape to the direction that socialism was to take in the following years.
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security. Shah, the most doctrinaire socialist in the Assembly, said that all natural resources should be state property, as well as key industries and other aspects of the economy. Another aspect of the Directive Principles was the emphasis given on certain institutions and principles central to Gandhian teaching. The majority of the amendments that was brought after November 1948 encouraged development of [a] village life and economy; [b] panchayat system of village organization; [c] the promotion of cottage industries and governments role in it; [d] the banning of the slaughter of cattle and the improvement of methods of animal husbandry; [e] promotion of agriculture; [f] prohibition of the production of harmful drugs and drinks a principle found in Gandhian Puritanism; [g] alleviation of socially and physically depressed industrial workers; [h] encouragement of home spinning for psychological and economic reasons and [i] providing alternative supply of textiles to the hated foreign cloth. Gandhi aimed at fighting poverty. However, cottage industry since 1950 received little or no attention from the central or state governments. The reason for the inclusion of these Gandhian principles was to show a certain degree of respect for Hindu society and the preservation of the structures. The religious aspects of cow protection had longstanding political ramifications. Protection of cow slaughter had existed for sixty years prior to the foundation of the Assembly. The demand for the ban was furthered by the Hindu revivalists. The reference to cow slaughter was found to be distasteful by many, especially Nehru. Since the Irish Constitution is also Roman Catholic, Article 48 of the Indian Constitution demonstrated the Hindu sentiments of the Indian Constitution. But the limits of Hinduism were to remain within the framework of Gandhian idealism. Prohibition was yet another issue which found mentioned in the Assembly debates dealing with the Principles. It appealed to both Hindus and Muslims, since drinking was never common among the Indian middle classes, perhaps for climatic reasons. The Assembly adopted a revised version of the amendment moved by a Muslim and a Hindu. The prohibition of liquor and harmful drugs, for example opium, became fundamental principles of governance. The Directives also revealed little commitment to the requirements of the promotion of socialist societies. Hollow promises were made. For instance the call for nationalization of various industries, establishment of a socialist order and socialist economy. One amendment also said that the profit motive in production [should be] entirely eliminated in due course of time [Amendment 894 submitted by V. D. Tripathy]. Another amendment aimed at giving in the fields and factories effective control of the administrative machinery of the state [Amendment 866 submitted by A. R. Shastri]. However, most of these amendments were voted down in the Assembly meetings or even sometimes withdrawn by their initiators. The collective wisdom, guided by the Oligarchy, believed that the principles should be kept general having enough room for people of different ways of thinking in order to reach the goal of democracy. [CAD VII, 9, 494-5; Ambedkar]. The Congress Party and in general the nationalist leaders paid lip service to socialism. Socialism was the goal, which had to be set, to be achieved. In the end less was achieved than was set out to be. The Directive Principles of State Policy are divided into five categories: economic directives, social directives, educational directives, judicial and executive directives, and
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directives dealing with Indias role in the maintenance of international peace and security.
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