What do you look for in a candidate, before voting in elections?

Their education , their Past- record, Criminal record, party manifesto, to name a
few.

Now what is a manifesto?

Manifesto of a party includes kind of guidelines or promises,

which are to be adhered to or fulfilled once that party comes to power.

But, what can you do if a political party refuses to keep its promises as mentioned
in the pre election manifesto?

Hmm..!?! You cannot do anything about it.

But this time something new happened in State elections at Chhattisgarh

Ajit Jogi’s party in Chhattisgarh (Chhattisgarh Janta Congress) issued their party
manifesto on a stamp paper.

So, in case the party wins and the promises are not fulfilled, people can sue the
party on basis of their manifesto.

But You might be wondering why I am talking about elections & manifestos today.

The reason is that we are going to discuss Directive Principles of State’s policy
in today’s video.

Fundamental Rights have been discussed in constitution in part III from Articles 12
-35

. While Article 36-51 have been discussed under Part IV of the constitution.

DPSPs have been adopted in our constitution from Irish Constitution.

If we concise the Preamble to Indian constitution, it has mainly 3 goals

to achieve 1. social, 2. economic & 3. political justice.

And the combined responsibility for meeting these goals is carried out by
Fundamental rights & DPSPs

Lets first begin with understanding the difference between fundamental rights &
DPSPs.

Firstly, Fundamental rights are a kind of negative rights.

. They lay down certain things that must not be done by the state if e wish to
achieve justice e.g. inequality, arbitrariness etc.

While DPSPs are a kind of positive rights, which lays down certain things that
state must do to meet the ends of justice.

Second difference: Fundamental rights are more concerned with political justice,
while DPSPs are more concerned with social justice & economic justice.

Third & most important difference

for whose sake I gave the example of elections in the beginning is that,
Fundamental rights are Justiciable rights.

. It means that if States (Center & State) fail to respect Fundamental rights of an
individual,

there is a remedy to approach to the Courts, which can direct the State in doing
so.

On the other hand, DPSPs are Non- Jisticiable rights, i.e. if state odes not
follows or tadhere to them, an individual cannot approach to a court.

So how do we know that DPSPs are Non-enforceable?

From Article 37. Article 36 is a definition clause, which says that definition of
‘state’ as given under Article 12 shall also be applicable in Part IV.

You can find detailed discussion regarding Article 12 here.

There are mainly 3 characteristics of Article 37:

1st- it says that Directie principles are non-enforceable. Many students are lead
to believe by this provision that Fundamental rights are very important,

while DPSPs are not important at all. But this is just one characteristic, there
are two more.

2nd characteristic says that for governance of out country, directive principles
are a fundamental source.

3rd characteristic is that, a government must follow the DPSPs while making any
law.

You might feel that Directive Principles are a kind of moral obligations, but this
is not true.

The greatest force behind enforcement of Directive Principles are- Us i.e. the
Public opinion.

How? Lets see.

A government is based upon a popular vote.

If a government does not bring good policies and does not respects directive
principles,

its possibility of continuing government after 5 years of its election get

diminished.

So, for sake of popular vote & improvement in public opinion, state & government
are bound to respect & follow the DPSPs.

The question arises, if DPSPs are so important, why are they non- justiciable?

See, if you find out about any gold medal winning sportsperson, you will see that
they have taken a big journey before reaching to the gold medal.

Similarly, when our country gained independence and constitution was written,
with social, economical and political aspects in mind, some provisions were
necessary to enforceme

Those provisions became our Fundamental Rights.

And rest of the bundle of rights were such that were planned to be enforced in
later day as the India develops,

E.g. Article 45 of the constitution.

At the time when our constitution was drafted

we were not socially and economically developed enough to be able to declare Right
to Education as a fundamental right.

But As soon as we advanced economically

Even though no classification has been made with respect to articles in Part IV in
constitution, on the basis of their content & principles

on the basis of contents of these articles, they were classified into 3 categories:
Socialilstic, Gandhian & Liberal.

Lets quickly have a look on these articles.

These all articles (Socialistic) provide for establishment of a welfare state,

e.g. adequate means of livelihood, equal pay for equal work etc.

The objectives of these articles is to achieve social welfare, which include

articles 38, 39, 39A, 41, 42, 43, 43A & 47.

To achieve the objectives of some of these DPSPs Some legislations have also been
introduced

e.g Land Ceiling Acts, Bank Nationalilsation, Equal pay for equal work & Maternity
Beniffit Act.

Article classified as Gadnhian talk about those principles which were envisioned by
Gandhiji during National struggle for independence

independence e.g. to establish cottage industry, to empower village panchayats,

etc.

So the focus of these articles is to advance Gandhi’s vision for India which
include Articles 40, 43, 43B, 46, 47, 48

Some of the DPSPs which have been successfully enforced include

promotion of cottage industry, minimum wages act & recent event of ban on slaughter
of cows which you all must be knowing

and third, these Articles which belong to the liberal principle talk about
liberalism

e.g. establishment of Uniform Civil Code, respecting international principles etc.

The articles promote the idea of liberalism

include Article 44, 45, 48, 48A, 49, 50 & 51.

Legislations regarding protection of environment like water pollution act, forest

act, etc. find their basis in these articles.

In addition Article 51 is also important which talk about international peace &
security.

The last part of this video on directive principles are these 4 amendments.

Firstly, 42nd ammenment of 1976 which lead to addition of 4 articles vi. 39, 39A,
43A, 48A.

Then we have 44th amendment act of 1978, whereby artcle 38 was added

Then we have 86th amendment act of 2002

here, article 45 was added up.

and finally, 97th amendment act of 2011 which added article 43B.

I hope you liked my video.

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that's it for now. See you in the next class. bye- bye.