Answer in 150 words: Indian Constitution makers’ concerns on social inequality. (2020, 10 Marks)
The framers inherited a society ranked by caste, gender and land, and most of them — B. R. Ambedkar above all — believed that political freedom resting on such a base would not last. Their concern with inequality is therefore spread across the whole text, not confined to one chapter.
The diagnosis
- Ambedkar’s idea of graded inequality: an ascending scale of reverence and a descending scale of contempt, each rank invested in keeping the one below in place. Reform from within was unlikely; only the state, through law, could disturb it.
- The Objectives Resolution (1946) pledged safeguards for minorities, backward and tribal areas and depressed classes, and the Preamble names justice as social, economic and political — social first.
- His warning of 25 November 1949: India would enter a “life of contradictions” — one person, one vote, but not yet one person, one value.
The instruments
| Concern | Response in the text |
|---|---|
| Caste stigma | Article 17 abolishes untouchability; 15(2) opens wells, shops and roads; 25(2)(b) opens public Hindu temples to all castes |
| Formal equality | Articles 14–16; religious freedom kept subject to social-reform law |
| Compensatory justice | Article 16(4); seats for SCs and STs (330, 332) with a ten-year limit (334); Article 46 |
| Exploitation | Articles 23–24 on forced labour, trafficking, child labour |
| Economic hierarchy | Part IV, “fundamental in the governance” (37): Articles 38 and 39(b)–(c); pending zamindari-abolition Bills shielded (31(4)) |
Where the concern stopped short
- Marxist reading: status inequality got justiciable rights, economic inequality only directives, while property stayed in Part III — land reform needed the First Amendment within eighteen months.
- Feminist reading: Article 15(3) permitted special provisions for women, yet personal laws were left intact and a uniform code parked in Article 44; Hansa Mehta chose equality over reserved seats, and women’s presence stayed thin.
- Ambedkar’s own States and Minorities (1947) asked for a justiciable programme of state socialism; the Assembly declined, and in 1949 religious minorities lost reserved seats, making caste the axis of compensation. Marc Galanter later called the result a regime of competing equalities.
The concern today
Janhit Abhiyan v. Union of India (November 2022) upheld the 103rd Amendment’s economically weaker sections quota by 3:2, stretching disadvantage from caste to income; the dissent held that excluding poor SCs, STs and OBCs breached the equality code. The 106th Amendment (2023) belatedly reserves a third of legislative seats for women, pending delimitation.
Conclusion
The concern was deliberate and radical: the state was made an agent against hierarchy. But the framers armed the attack on status and only exhorted the attack on wealth — the gap Ambedkar named, which still defines India’s equality debates.