The Constitution of India is an emancipatory document. It provides equal citizenship to all citizens of India. The Constitution is not just a legal document, but in India’s social structure, it is a quantum leap. In one stroke, it gave a dignified identity to all citizens of India. On 26 January 1950, the Constitution eliminated the legality of caste-based discrimination, thereby raising the human dignity of our marginalised communities.
Indian Constitution heralded New Ideas and Values based on Equality and Dignity
Describing the vision of the framers, constitutional historian Granville Austin stated:
“India’s founding fathers and mothers established in the Constitution both the nation’s ideals and the institutions and processes for achieving them. The ideals were national unity and integrity and a democratic and equitable society. The new society was to be achieved through a social-economic revolution pursued with a democratic spirit using constitutional, democratic institutions. I later came to think of unity, social revolution, and democracy as three strands of a seamless web. The founders believed that none of these goals was to be pursued, nor could any be achieved, separately. They were mutually dependent and had to be sought together.”[1]
Marc Galanter noted in this regard:
“Independent India embraced equality as a cardinal value against a background of elaborate, valued and clearly perceived inequalities. Her constitutional policies to offset these proceeded from an awareness of the entrenched and cumulative nature of group inequalities.”[2]
The Constitution mandates the replacement of fundamental wrongs with fundamental rights.[3]
Through its provisions, it displaced a centuries-old caste-based hierarchical social order “that did not recognize the principle of individual equality”.[4]
It negated the ideals of social hierarchy. The Constitution is the embodiment of the aspirations of the millions of caste-oppressed communities, which hoped for a better future in independent India. To summarize, the “Constitution, by its very existence, was a social revolutionary statement.”[5]
Dalit leaders in Constituent Assembly
Some of the speeches in the Constituent Assembly give expression to this vision. On behalf of the Adivasi community, Jaipal Singh Munda shared the following sentiments and expectations from the Constitution:
“Mr. Chairman, Sir, I rise to speak on behalf of millions of unknown hordes-yet very important-of unrecognised warriors of freedom, the original people of India who have variously been known as backward tribes, primitive tribes, criminal tribes and everything else, Sir, I am proud to be a Jungli, that is the name by which we are known in my part of the country…
Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years… You cannot teach democracy to the tribal people; you have to learn democratic ways from them. They are the most democratic people on earth… We want to be treated like every other Indian.”[6]
H.J. Khandekar, a leader from the Dalit community, raised the plight of the so-called “criminal tribes”:
“We have been given according to this Constitution freedom of speech and freedom of movement and so on. But there is no freedom of movement for one crore of unfortunate people in this country. That is, the Criminal Tribes. Nothing is said about them in this Constitution. Will the Government repeal the Criminal Tribes Act and give every freedom to the Criminal Tribes?”[7]
Dakshayani Velayudhan, the lone Dalit woman in the Constituent Assembly, noted:
“The working of the Constitution will depend upon how the people will conduct themselves in the future, not on the actual execution of the law. So I hope that in course of time there will not be such a community known as Untouchables and that our delegates abroad will not have to hang their heads in shame if somebody raises such a question in an organisation of international nature.”[8]
Dr Ambedkar, as Chairman of the Drafting Committee, remarked in his last address to the Constituent Assembly:
“On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life?
If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up.”[9]
The vision laid down by Dr. Ambedkar, Jaipal Singh Munda, H.J. Khandekar, and Dakshayani Velayudhan, among others, emphasizes that there shall be no discrimination in the country. The Constitution envisions a society where there is no room for anyone to feel superior to another citizen.
The Chapter of Fundamental Rights replaced fundamental wrongs with fundamental rights
The chapter on fundamental rights places the provisions on equality, non-discrimination, equality of opportunity, affirmative action, abolition of untouchability, freedom of speech and expression, right to life, and prohibition of forced labour together. This has been done for a special reason.
The framers of the Constitution conceptualized that without the provisions on the prohibition of discrimination, abolition of untouchability, and prohibition on forced labour, the imagination of broader rights such as equality before law, freedom of speech and expression, and the right to life would remain incomplete. The Constitution thus complements the basic principles of constitutionalism with provisions designed specifically to address India’s social problems.
The underlying Philosophy of Constitution as highlighted by Supreme Court of India
This underlying philosophy of the Constitution has been highlighted by Supreme Court in several judgments. Chief Justice S.M. Sikri, in his opinion in Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973) held that the objective of various provisions of the Constitution is to build “a welfare State and an egalitarian social order in our country”, and “to bring about a socio-economic transformation based on principles of social justice”.
Referring to Part III of the Constitution, the judgment stated that the founders were “anxious that it should be a society where the citizen will enjoy the various freedoms and such rights as are the basic elements of those freedoms without which there can be no dignity of individual”.
Justice Krishna Iyer in his concurring opinion in State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas (1976) called the Constitution “a great social document, almost revolutionary in its aim of transforming a medieval, hierarchical society into a modern, egalitarian democracy”.
In Indian Medical Association v. Union of India, (2011) the Court held that “various aspects of social justice, and an egalitarian social order, were also inscribed, not as exceptions to the formal content of equality but as intrinsic, vital and necessary components of the basic equality code itself”.
The Court held in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) that the “vision of the founding fathers was enriched by the histories of suffering of those who suffered oppression and a violation of dignity both here and elsewhere”.
Justice DY Chandrachud authored the plurality opinion, holding that the interpretation of the Constitution must keep evolving to facilitate justice for the citizens.
In Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, (2018) the Court while dealing with the validity of a colonial provision (Section 377 of the Penal Code), held that the Constitution envisages that “every person enjoys equal rights which enable him/her to grow and realize his/her potential as an individual”.
The Court also acknowledged that “throughout history, socio-cultural revolts, anti-discrimination assertions, movements, literature and leaders have worked at socializing people away from supremacist thought and towards an egalitarian existence.”
In that backdrop, the Indian Constitution “was an attempt to reverse the socializing of prejudice, discrimination, and power hegemony in a disjointed society”.
The Court, in Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, (2019) described the anti-caste vision of the Constitution. Justice DY Chandrachud wrote a concurring opinion, noting that:
“Besides the struggle for independence from the British rule, there was another struggle going on since centuries and which still continues. That struggle has been for social emancipation. It has been the struggle for the replacement of an unequal social order. It has been a fight for undoing historical injustices and for righting fundamental wrongs with fundamental rights. The Constitution of India is the end product of both these struggles. It is the foundational document, which in text and spirit, aims at social transformation, namely, the creation and preservation of an equal social order.
The Constitution represents the aspirations of those, who were denied the basic ingredients of a dignified existence. It contains a vision of social justice and lays down a roadmap for successive governments to achieve that vision. The document sets out a moral trajectory, which citizens must pursue for the realisation of the values of liberty, equality, fraternity and justice. It is an assurance to the marginalised to be able to rise to the challenges of human existence…”
The Court emphasized the need to scrutinize social practices to keep them in consonance with the egalitarian values of the Constitution:
“The Constitution embodies a vision of social transformation. It represents a break from history marked by the indignation and discrimination attached to certain identities and serves as a bridge to a vision of a just and equal citizenship. In a deeply divided society marked by intermixing identities such as religion, race, caste, sex and personal characteristics as the sites of discrimination and oppression, the Constitution marks a perception of a new social order.
This social order places the dignity of every individual at the heart of its endeavours… Existing structures of social discrimination must be evaluated through the prism of constitutional morality. The effect and endeavour is to produce a society marked by compassion for every individual.”
The Constitution thus stands as a testament to the fight against historical injustices and for the establishment of an egalitarian social order. It aims to prevent caste-based discrimination. This commitment is not limited to preventing discriminatory actions by the State alone. It extends to the actions of citizens and private entities as well. It empowers the State to enact appropriate legislation or take executive measures to tackle caste-based discrimination.
At the same time, it mandates the decision-makers to take every step to end discrimination in Indian society. The pervasive influence of caste necessitates continuous efforts to ensure equality and justice for all citizens. The manifestations of caste are too numerous to exhaustively enumerate.[10]
They can manifest in various forms and across different sectors of society, from education and employment to social interactions and access to resources. As has been observed:
“Continued to be attributed typically to the rural hinterlands and assumed to be limited only to the discussions on reservation policy and electoral politics, caste has mutated and diversified during the past three decades. Today, its presence is visible in urban housing, its markets and businesses, higher educational institutions, and public sector offices as well as the private sector working spaces, which were projected to be secular and privilege class over caste, and the various socio-economic and political institutions that interface with everyday lived experiences.”[11]
The fight against caste-based discrimination is not a battle that can be won overnight; it requires sustained effort, dedication, and the willingness to confront and challenge societal norms that perpetuate inequality. When faced with practices of caste-based discrimination, this Court must take an active stand. In entertaining the current petition, this Court is making its contribution to the ongoing struggle to dismantle caste-based discrimination.
Reference
Sukanya Shantha v. Union of India (2024)
[1] Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, Oxford University Press (1966), p. xi
[2] Marc Galanter, Law and Society in Modern India, Oxford University Press (1989), 2018 Reprint, p. 185
[3] Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, Oxford University Press (1966), p. xii
[4] Granville Austin, Working A Democratic Constitution: The Indian Experience, Oxford University Press (1999), p.
7
[5] Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, Oxford University Press (1966), p. xii
[6] Constituent Assembly Debates (19 December 1946)
[7] Constituent Assembly Debates (21 November 1949)
[8] Constituent Assembly Debates (29 November 1948)
[9] Constituent Assembly Debates (25 November 1949)
[10] Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Penguin Random House (2020), p. 167
[11] Rahul Choragudi, et al, Caste Matters in Public Policy: Issues and Perspectives, Routledge (2024), Reprint, p. 2