(i) Socialist and Economic Principles: The socialist and economic principles always aim to shape our country in to a Welfare State. Art. 38(1) provides that the State shall promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as it may a social order in which justice – social, economic, and political shall inform all the institutions of national life. The State shall strive to minimize the inequalities in income and try to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities among individuals and groups engaged in different locations within the country (Art.38-2). Thus promotion of welfare of people by securing a social order where justice shall prevail is the objective of our constitution. To ensure such objectives the State shall direct its policy in securing-
Adequate means of livelihood for all citizen irrespective of men and women equally;
I. Equal distribution of wealth and resources among all classes;
equal pay for equal work for both men and women;
II. Just and humane conditions of work, a decent standard of living , full employment, leisure and social and cultural opportunities;
III. Participation of workers in the management of undertakings and establishments;
IV. Protection of children, youth against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment. The forty-two amendment altered this provision and provides that " children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against moral and material abandonment";
V. Provision of work and compulsory education for all people, relief in case of unemployment, old age, sickness and disability and other cases of undeserved want;
VI. Equality of opportunity and status for all individuals ;
VII. Level of nutrition and standard of living of the people ;
VIII. Public health and enforce prohibition of consumption of intoxicating drinks and drugs;
IX. Environment safeguarding forest and wild life of the country;
X. A uniform civil code throughout the country ;
XI. Protection of adult and child labour.
(ii) Gandhian Principles:
Principles enjoined under Gandhian principles in Article 40, Article 43, Article 47 and Article 48 are some ideals of Mahatma Gandhi followed during his life time. Our constitution framers wanted to implement these ideals to fulfil his dream. The State shall take steps-
* to organize village panchayats and endow them power and authority to enable them to function as unit of self-government. ;
* to promote cottage industries and village industries on an individual or co-operative basis in rural areas ;
* to prohibit consumption of intoxicating and injurious drinks and drugs;
* to promote educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people particularly SCs, STs to establish social justice and equity ;
* to organize agricultural and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines ;
* to prohibit the slaughter of cows and other useful cattle ;
* to protect and improve environment and safeguard the forests and wild life of the country
* to protect, preserve and maintain places of national historical importance ;
* to separate the judiciary from the executive.
(iii) Liberal intellectual directives
Principal among such directives are
(a) To secure uniform civil code throughout the country (Art.44),
(b) To separate the judiciary from the executive (Art.50),
(c) To protect monuments of historic and national importance and
(d) To promote international peace and security.
On the whole, Part IV contains a formidable list of directives given to the executive and the legislatures to follow in issuing orders or making laws. These directives make India a "plastic state." The directives may be used by any party with any ideology. In fact, the Directive Principles are codified versions of democratic socialist order as conceived by Nehru with an admixture of Gandhian thought.
Part IV of the constitution does not form an operative part of the constitution. The directives are non-justiciable in character. The courts cannot compel the governments to enforce the directives.
But if there is no judicial sanction behind the directives, there are certainly political sanctions. Art. 37 make the directives, "fundamental in the governance of the country and in… making laws." Hence the government cannot totally ignore them, for fear of adverse popular reaction. The opposition inevitably takes the government to task whenever the directives are blatantly ignored, thus scoring a political point.
The non-justiciability of part IV has exposed the directives to trenchant criticism. Jennings calls them "pious aspirations," and "Fabian socialism without socialism." Where characterizes them as "paragraphs of generalities."
Yet many scholars appreciate the value of the directives. Sir B. N. Rau regards them as "moral precepts" with an educative value. Ambedkar considered them as powerful instruments for the transformation of India from a political democracy into an economic democracy. The directive principles according to Granville Austin are "positive obligations"… to find a piddle way between individual liberty and Public good. "The directives constitute a sort of "instrument of instruction" to all governments in the great task of transforming a laissez-fire society into a welfare state, a socialistic pattern of society and eventually into a socialist society.
