Class - 11 NCERT political chapter -10

 The philosophy of the constitution 

What is meant by philosophy of the Constitution

•  Some people believe that a constitution made the concept of law and that laws are one think values and morality quite another.
•  We can have only a legislatic, not a political philosophy approach to the constitution.
•  It is true that all Laws do not have a moral content, but many law are closely connected to our deeply held values.
•  We have three think in mind.
•  First, we need to understand the conceptual structure of the constitution .
• Furthermore,  we must attempt to work out a coherent vision of society and polity conditional upon and interpretation of the key concept of constitution .
• Our final point is that the Indian Constitution must be read in conjunction with the constitution assembly debate in order to refine and rise to a higher theoretical plan the justification of value embedded in the constitution.
•  A philosopheal treatment of a value is incomplete if a detailed justification for it is not provided.
•  A political philosophy approach to the constitution is needed not only to find out the moral content Express in it and to evaluate its claim but possible to use it to Arab rate rate between varying interpretations of the many core value in our polity.

Constitution as means of Democratic transformation

•  Modern states are extremely powerful.
•  They are believed to have a Monopoly over force coercion.
•  Experience of State Power the world over show that most states are prone to harming the interest of at least some individuals and groups.
•  constitutions provide these basic rules and therefore, prevent States from turning tyrannical. 
•  The demand for a constitution assembly, he claimed, represented a collective demand for full self determination.
•  He argued, the constitution assembly is not just a body of people or a gathering of able lawyers.

 why do we need to go back to the constitution assembly?

• In the context of America where the constitution was written in the late 18th century  it is absurd  to apply the values and standard of that era to the 21st century .
• In term of our values ,ideals and conception, we have not separate ourself from the world of the constituent assembly.

 What is the political philosophy of our constitution?

•  It resists any single label because it is in liberal ,democratic , egalitarian, secular  and Federal ,Open to community value sensitive to the need of religious and linguistic minority as well as historical disadvantage group  and committed to building a common National identity.
•  It is committed to freedom equality, Social justice, and some form of national Unity.
• Individual freedom 
• The first point to note about the constitution is its commitment to individual freedom .
• The commitment did not emerge Miracuriously out of calm deliberation around the table .
• Freedom of expression is an integral part of the Indian Constitution is the freedom from arbitrary arrest .

Social Justice

•  The liberalism of the Indian Constitution different from this version in two ways.
•  First it was always linked to Social Justice.
•  The maker of the Constitution believe that the  that married granting of the right to equality was not enough to overcome age old injustice suffered by these groups or to give real meaning to their right to vote.
•  Special constitutional measures were required to advance their interests.
• The constitution maker provide a number of special measures to protect the interest of scheduled caste and Scheduled Tribes such as the reservation of seats in legislature.
•  The constitution also made it possible for the government to reserve public sector job for these groups.

Respect for diversity and minority rights 

• The Indian Constitution encourage equal respect between communities.
•  This was not easy in our country, first because communities do not always have a relationship of equality.
•  They tend to have hierarchical  relationship with one another.
•  second cut  this community to see each other as equal, they also tend to become Rivals.

Secularism 

• Secular states are widely seen as treating religion as only a private matter.
•  They refused to give religion public or official recondition.
• The terms secular  was not initially mentioned, the Indian Constitution has always been secular.
• The term mutual exclusion means this both religion and state must save away from the internal affairs of one another.
• The makers of constitution had to work out an alternative conception of secularism. 
•  They Departed from the Western model in two way and four two different reasons.

Right of religious groups

•  First, as mentioned already they recognised that inter-community equality was as necessary as equality between individuals.
• The Indian Constitution grants right to all religious communities such as the right to establish and maintain their educational institutions.
• Freedom of religion in India me in the freedom of religion of both individual and communities. 

State's Power of intervention

• Second separation in India could not mean mutual exclusion. because, religiously sanctioned  Customs such as untouchability deprived individual of the most basic dignity and self respect.
• The state simply had to interfere in affairs of religion .
• In India separation between religion and state did not mean their mutual exclusion but rather principle distance, a rather Complex idea that allows the state to be distant from all religions show that it can enter When or Absent from interference, depending upon which of these two would better promoter liberty equality and Social Justice.
• First, our constitution is reinforces and reinvents from of liberal individuals this is an important achievement because this is done in the backdrop of a society where community value are after an indifferent and hostile to individual at autonomy.
• Second , our constitution upholds the principle of Social Justice without compromising on individual Liberties.
• Third, against the background of inter - communal strife, the constitution upholds its community event to group right.

Universal franchise

• Two other Core feature may also be regarded as achievements.
•  First it is no mean achievement to committee on self to Universe Franchise,
•  Indian nationalism always conceived of a political order based on the will of every single member of society.
•  The idea of Universal Franchise lay securely within the heart of nationalism.
•  The Motilal Nehru report 1928 reaffirms this conception of citizenship reiterating that every person of either sex who has attained the age of 21 is entitled to vote for the house of representative of parliament. 

 Federalism

•  Second by introducing the article concerning Jammu and Kashmir and the North East the Indian constitution anticipates the very important concept of asymmetric federalism.
•  The constitutional symmetry of American federalism, India federalism has been constitution asymmetric .

For example The accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the India union was based on a commitment to safeguard and its autonomy under article 370 of the constitution.

 the core the constitution did not original in wages this India is now a multi lingual production the democratic and linguistic federalism of India has managed to combine claims to Unity with claims to cultural recognised.

National identity 

• The constitution reinforces a common National identity .
• The Indian Constitution tried to balance these various identities.
•  Separate electorates were rejected not because they fostered different between religious communities as such or because they in endangered simple notion of national Unity but because they endangered a healthy National life.

Procedural achievements

•  All these five Core features are what might be called the sub achievement of constitution.
•  First, the Indian Constitution reflect of faith in political deliberation.
• Second, is reflect a spirit of compromise  and accommodation

Criticism 

• The Indian Constitution can be subjected to many criticism of which 3 may be briefly  mentioned: first, that is unwidely: second, that is an representative and third that is that it is alien to our conditions.
•  The criticism that it is unwidely is based on the assumption that the entire constitution of a country must be found in one compact document .
• Many countries for instance do not have provisions for election commission of the Civil Service Commission in the document known as constitution.
•  A second criticism of  the constitution is that it is an unrepresentative.
• The voice component of Representation is important.
•  A final criticism alleges that the Indian Constitution is entirely and alien document, borrowed  article by article from Western constitution and sits uneasily with the cultural ethos of the Indian people.
•  It is true that the Indian Constitution is modern and partly western .
• First ,many Indians have not only adopt modern way of thinking ,but have made these their own. 
•  Second, when Western modernity begin to interact with local cultural system something like a hybrid cultural begin to emerge for the possibly by Creative adaptation, for which a parallel can be found nether in western modernity nor indigenous tradition.
• In non Western societies, different modernities emerged as North-West society tried to breed loose not only from their own past practice but also from the circle of a particular version of Western modernity imposed on them.

Limitations 

• All this is not to say that the  constitution of India is perfect and flawless document .
• There are many features of this Constitution that have emerged mainly due to existence of the time. 
• we must study that there are many limitation to this constitution.
•  The limitation of the Constitution.
•  First, the Indian Constitution has a centralised idea of national Unity .
• Second,  it appears to have glossed over some important issue of gender justice particularly within the family. 
• Third, it is not clear by why in a poor developing country, certain basic socio-economic right  very relegated to the section of directive principle rather than made and integral feature of our fundamental rights .