Do you agree with the view that Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Polity constitute the ‘Core and Conscience’ of the Indian Constitution? Comment on the emerging trends in their interrelationship. (2005)
The description comes from Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (1966), whose chapter on Parts III and IV is titled The Conscience of the Constitution: the core of the commitment to the social revolution, he argued, lies in these two Parts. Y. V. Chandrachud adopted it in Minerva Mills (1980), holding that Parts III and IV together form the Constitution’s core and combine to form its conscience. The view is largely right, with two qualifications.
Why the View Holds
- Complementary instruments. Part III secures political democracy by restraining the state; Part IV commits it to economic and social democracy. The Preamble’s justice needs both.
- B. R. Ambedkar framed the division similarly: the directives set the goal, the rights the permissible means. Their separation tested feasibility, not rank.
- The Court has made the pairing structural: Kesavananda Bharati (1973) called them complementary, and Minerva Mills made their harmony and balance part of the basic structure.
Qualifications
- “Core” is too narrow. The basic structure also includes federalism, judicial review, free elections and secularism, which sit outside Parts III and IV. Madhav Khosla reads the founding as a project of building democratic institutions: codification, a centralised state, representation. Machinery matters as much as promises.
- “Conscience” is not unified. Ivor Jennings found no consistent philosophy in the two Parts; Gandhian directives such as Article 48 (cattle) and prohibition under Article 47 sit uneasily with Part III liberty.
Emerging Trends in the Interrelationship
| Phase | Landmarks | Relationship |
|---|---|---|
| Primacy of rights | Champakam Dorairajan (1951): directives must conform to and run as subsidiary to Part III; First Amendment reply | Hierarchy |
| Confrontation | Golaknath (1967); 24th and 25th Amendments (1971), Article 31C shielding laws under 39(b)–(c) | Parliament asserts Part IV |
| Balance | Kesavananda (1973); 42nd Amendment extends 31C to all directives; Minerva Mills (1980) strikes the extension | Harmony, neither absolute |
| Integration | Olga Tellis (1985), Subhash Kumar (1991), Unni Krishnan (1993) read Part IV into Article 21; 86th Amendment (2002) turns Article 45 into Article 21A | Directives become rights |
| Recalibration | Property Owners Association (2024); M. K. Ranjitsinh (2024) | Selective use of Part IV |
- Integration is the decisive trend. Part IV is enforced not against Part III but through it, and supplies the test of reasonable restriction, as when Mirzapur Moti Kureshi (2005) upheld a cattle-slaughter ban by reading Article 48 with Article 51A(g).
- Recalibration marks the 2020s. A nine-judge bench in Property Owners Association v. State of Maharashtra (5 November 2024) held, 8:1, that not all private property is a material resource of the community under Article 39(b), calling the Constitution economically neutral, while unanimously confirming that the original Article 31C survives. Ranjitsinh, by contrast, read Article 48A into Articles 14 and 21 to find a right against the adverse effects of climate change.
- Initiative has also shifted to legislation: food, education and employment statutes turn directives into rights.
Conclusion
Parts III and IV are the normative core and conscience of the Constitution, though not its whole core, which also rests on institutions. The relationship has moved from hierarchy to balance to fusion through Article 21. Its present form is selective: expansive for environment and dignity, restrained for redistribution of property.