Constitution As A Moral Document
- IJLLR Journal
- 4 minutes ago
- 1 min read
Rajvardhan Pawar & Avanti Dahekar, Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur
ABSTRACT
The Constitution of India, conceived as a transformative moral charter, is increasingly perceived by a large segment of its citizenry as a distant and inaccessible text. This paper investigates the growing chasm between the Constitution's normative ideals of justice, liberty, and equality, and their lived reality. It argues that a deep constitutional ambiguity manifested through systemic barriers like legal illiteracy, procedural complexity, and selective rights enforcement is eroding the document's moral authority and legitimacy. Drawing on qualitative empirical research, including 25 semi- structured interviews with marginalized communities in rural Maharashtra, this study analyzes how the Constitution is experienced in everyday life. The findings reveal four key themes: (1) widespread constitutional illiteracy that fosters disenfranchisement; (2) a pervasive view of justice as a commodity accessible only to the wealthy and powerful; (3) a significant gap between rights guaranteed in theory and their practical unenforceability; and (4) the function of procedural rigor as a labyrinthine barrier that excludes rather than empowers. The paper concludes that for the Indian Constitution to reclaim its moral force, it must be transformed from an elite artifact into a living document that is known, claimed, and experienced by all citizens.
Keywords: Constitutional Morality, Socio-Legal Studies, Legal Consciousness, Access to Justice, Indian Constitution, Empirical Legal Research, Constitutional Ambiguity
