Socialism's Influence on the Indian Constitution

In one line

The Indian Constitution was socialist in inspiration before the word was inserted and became explicitly socialist in 1976, but the word operates as a direction to the State and an aid to interpretation rather than as a rule that overrides rights.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: socialism influenced the Indian Constitution through the Directive Principles of State Policy, which direct the State to minimise inequalities of income, status, facilities and opportunities, to distribute the material resources of the community to subserve the common good, and to prevent the concentration of wealth to the common detriment; through the insertion of the word socialist in the Preamble by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act 1976; and through the removal of property from the fundamental rights by the Forty-fourth Amendment; but the Supreme Court has held that the word does not authorise the State to disregard the interests of private owners, while also treating it as a legitimate and effective aid to the construction of legislation and executive action.

Where socialism entered

Before the Constitution. The demand was made inside the national movement long before independence. The Karachi resolution of the Indian National Congress in 1931, on fundamental rights and economic policy, set out obligations about a living wage, limited hours, protection against sickness and old age, and state ownership or control of key industries, and it is the ancestor of Part IV.

In the Constituent Assembly. A proposal to describe India as socialist in the Preamble was made and was not accepted at the time, on the view that the economic structure was a matter for the people to decide from time to time and should not be fixed by the Constitution. That refusal is worth knowing, because it shows the 1976 insertion was a change and not a clarification.

What was adopted instead was Part IV, which is socialist in substance without using the word.

The Directive Principles

The provisions that carry the socialist content, and an answer should be able to name them.

Article 38 requires the State to secure a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of national life, and, by the clause added in 1978, to minimise inequalities in income, and to endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities, not only among individuals but also among groups.

Article 39 directs that the State shall in particular direct its policy towards securing that citizens have an adequate means of livelihood; that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good; that the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment; equal pay for equal work for men and women; that the health and strength of workers is not abused and that they are not forced by economic necessity into unsuited occupations; and that children are given opportunities to develop in conditions of freedom and dignity.