INTRODUCTION

This chapter is a series of observations on a thought experiment. It is written by two authors, neither of whom is an authority on law but both of whom recognize that law is a kind of environment, a second skin in which many of us swim. As one wag put it, “when you don't like law, one calls it bureaucracy but when one admires and judges it as creative or exotic, it becomes jurisprudence.”

The constitution of India falls under the second category. Popular films like Dev, Garv, and Khakee, endow it with an almost canonical status. However, during the last few years, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the coalition party which was in power until May 2004, was keen to institute a review of the constitution. There was a sense that the constitution, despite a coral reef of amendments, was anachronistic. But the debate over the review was seen in parochial terms and not much came of it.

The authors were requested to write a monograph on the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP). India is one of the three countries, along with Ireland and Russia, whose constitutions have a chapter on DPSP. Part IV of the Indian constitution (Articles 36–51) contains the DPSP. As rights, these are not enforceable, yet they constitute part of the frame within which rights are articulated. The DPSP add a vision of economic democracy to the idea of fundamental rights.