Sources & Importance of Fundamental Rights in Constitution of India

The framers of the Indian Constitution were in a happy position to examine the experience of a variety of constitutions from different parts of the world to select the appropriate rights to be safeguarded as fundamental rights. Out of them, the Bill of Rights of American Constitution, French declaration of Rights of Man and the Irish Constitution of 1935 were most important. These three were from pre WW-II era. Among those from post WW-II era, the Constitution of Japan and Myanmar attracted them most.

Then, at the same time, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was on the final stage of drafting at the United Nations.

Our experience with British rule was painful because basic rights were dependent on the whim of the rulers. Hence, our constitution secures to the people certain basic rights which cannot be trampled by the state. In this respect we have followed the American constitution. The constituent assembly was determined to safeguard certain rights and incorporated them in part III of the constitution.

Apart from these, the situation and circumstances at home had influenced the framing of the Fundamental rights.

• First of them was the special disability the people of India suffered during the British Rule.
• Second was the division of Indian society into various castes, creeds as a large section of Indian society was “untouchables”
• Third was the presence of various religious minorities in India whose cultural and other rights had to be safeguarded.

Fundamental Rights in Constituent Assembly

The major issue for the constituent assembly was to arrive at selection of rights. The following questions needed answers before a chapter was to be added to the constitution:

• What rights should be fundamental?
• If the right to life, liberty and property were fundamental, then what about employment and education?
• Are they going to be individualistic focussed?
• Are they going to be justifiable or not justifiable?
• To what extent, the state of India is capable to provide justification to those rights?

It was almost agreeable that at that point of time, it was not the capability of the Indian State to guarantee right to employment and education to all. This means that it was not the lack of will but was the lack of resources that the state could not guarantee of kinds of rights. Consequently, the rights were divided into two parts as follows:

1. Justifiable Rights
2. Non-justifiable rights

The Justifiable rights were those enforceable by a court of law. These enforceable rights were incorporated in the Part III of the Constitution. The non-justifiable rights were incorporated as a directive to the state to take all measures to provide those rights to individuals without any guarantee. They were incorporated in the part IV of the constitution and were called Directive Principles of State Policy.

Importance of Fundamental Rights

Part III of the constitution covers all the traditional civil and political rights enumerated in the universal declaration of human rights. Dr. Ambedkar described them as the most citizen part of the constitution. Fundamental rights were deemed essential to protect the rights and liberties of the people against the encroachment of the power delegated by them to their government.

These fundamental rights represent the basic values cherished by the people of this country since the Vedic times and they are calculated to protect the dignity of the individual and create conditions in which every human being can develop his personality to the fullest extent. They weave a pattern of guarantee on the basic structure of human rights, and impose negative obligations on the state not on encroach on individual liberty in its various dimensions.

These rights are regarded as fundamental because they are most essential for the attainment by the individual of his full intellectual, moral and spiritual status. The object the inclusion of them in the constitution is to establish a government of law and not of man. The object is to establish rule of law.