How far do you agree that the Directive Principles of State Policy are more fundamental than the Fundamental Rights in meeting socio-economic justice as mentioned in the Preamble of the Constitution? (2024, 20 Marks)
The Preamble promises justice, social, economic and political, and Article 38 repeats that phrase almost word for word, within Part IV rather than Part III. Article 37 calls the directives fundamental in the governance of the country, a description applied to no fundamental right. The claim is therefore largely right about the ends of socio-economic justice, but wrong if it means the directives outrank rights in authority.
Why Part IV Looks More Fundamental
- The programme of justice is written there. Articles 38(2) (inequalities of income, added by the 44th Amendment), 39(b)–(c) (distribution of resources, no concentration of wealth), 41 (work, education, public assistance), 43 (living wage) and 46 (weaker sections) state the Preamble’s economic content. Part III, liberal in origin, mostly restrains the State; Part IV, socialist and Gandhian, commands it to act for the collective.
- Rights without means are empty. Freedom of speech means little to someone illiterate and hungry. B. R. Ambedkar told the Assembly on 25 November 1949 that political democracy cannot last unless it rests on social democracy, and he saw the directives as the charter of economic democracy. In Minerva Mills (1980), P. N. Bhagwati J, dissenting in part, defended the extended Article 31C on this ground.
- The conflict may be artificial. K. C. Markandan (Directive Principles of State Policy in the Indian Constitution) argued that Parts III and IV began as one list, split only by whether a claim could be assured and enforced at once. The framers, he held, expected courts to let the State implement the directives, whose object is the good of society as a whole, a larger interest than any single individual’s.
Why “More Fundamental” Overstates It
- Non-justiciability has a cost. Enforceability was withheld because the new State lacked resources; enforceable promises it could not meet would have discredited the Constitution. The result is dependence on political will: Article 43A remains largely unrealised, and in 2022–23 the top 1 per cent held 22.6 per cent of national income (World Inequality Lab, 2024) despite Article 39(c).
- Part III carries socio-economic justice too: Articles 15(4), 16(4), 17, 23, 24 and 21A are redistributive and enforceable.
- Primacy invites abuse. The 42nd Amendment’s extension of Article 31C would have let any law escape review by reciting a directive; Minerva Mills struck it down because welfare pursued without rights slides into authoritarianism.
- Courts now define the directives’ reach. Property Owners Association (2024) held 8:1 that not all private property is a “material resource of the community”, narrowing 39(b).
Floor and Compass
| Fundamental Rights | Directive Principles | |
|---|---|---|
| Role | Enforceable floor | Directional compass |
| Justice secured | Protection from domination | Redistribution of opportunity |
| Weakness | Can freeze existing inequality | Depends on political will |
Socio-economic justice has advanced most when the two fused. Livelihood entered Article 21 through Olga Tellis (1985); education through Unni Krishnan (1993), then Article 21A; the right-to-food litigation (PUCL, from 2001) prepared the National Food Security Act 2013. Part IV supplied the content and Part III the remedy, which is why Granville Austin called the two together the conscience of the Constitution, and why Minerva Mills made harmony and balance between them part of the basic structure.
Conclusion
I agree to a considerable extent, but only in one sense: Part IV is more fundamental as the statement of purpose for socio-economic justice. As an instrument it is incomplete without Part III, whose enforceability has carried the directives into courts and statutes. The Preamble’s promise is met by the balance of the two, not by the primacy of either.