Indian liberalism
Topic: Preamble and the Philosophy of the Constitution · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 10 "The Philosophy of the Constitution"
Meaning
Indian liberalism is the kind of liberalism found in India's Constitution. Unlike classical Western liberalism, it was always joined to social justice and community rights. K.M. Panikkar (In Defence of Liberalism, 1962) traced two streams:
- Rammohan Roy's stream of individual rights, especially women's rights;
- the social-reform stream of K.C. Sen, Justice Ranade and Swami Vivekananda, which brought social justice into orthodox Hinduism.
The framers held that formal equality alone could not undo age-old injustice. The result was social justice without giving up individual liberty.
Example
The Constitution reserves seats for SCs and STs in legislatures (Arts. 330, 332 and 334, extended to 2030 by the 104th Amendment, 2019). It permits job reservation (Art. 16(4)) and abolishes untouchability (Art. 17). India wrote caste-based affirmative action into its Constitution almost two decades before similar US programmes began after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Don't confuse with
- Classical Western liberalism: it focuses only on individual rights and ignores communities. Indian liberalism adds social justice and group rights.