The Philosophy of the Constitution Test - 3

In short, it is committed to freedom, equality, social justice, and some form of national unity. But underneath all this, there is a clear emphasis on peaceful and democratic measures for putting this philosophy into practice.

Indian liberalism has two streams. The first stream began with Rammohan Roy. He emphasised individual rights, particularly the rights of women. The second stream included thinkers like K.C. Sen, Justice Ranade, and Swami Vivekananda. They introduced the spirit of social justice within orthodox Hinduism. 

Unlike the constitutional symmetry of American federalism, Indian federalism has been constitutionally asymmetric.

It might be recalled that for over forty years before the adoption of the Constitution, every single resolution, scheme, bill, and report of the Indian National Congress mentioned individual rights, not just in passing but as a non-negotiable value.

As early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, Rammohan Roy protested against the curtailment of the freedom of the press by the British colonial state. 

Our final point is that the Indian Constitution must be read in conjunction with the Constituent Assembly Debates in order to refine and raise to a higher theoretical plane, the justification of values embedded in the Constitution.

The liberalism of the Indian Constitution differs from this version in two ways. First, it was always linked to social justice. The best example of this is the provision for reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Constitution. 

As early as the Constitution of India Bill (1895), the first non-official attempt at drafting a constitution for India, the author declared that every citizen, i.e., anyone born in India, had a right to take part in the affairs of the country and be admitted to public office.

The Indian Constitution was designed to break the shackles of traditional social hierarchies and to usher in a new era of freedom, equality and justice.

More importantly, India is a land of multiple cultural communities. Unlike Germany or France we have several linguistic and religious communities. It was important to ensure that no one community systematically dominates others. This made it mandatory for our Constitution to recognise community-based rights.