‘Socialist’ Sailing Into The Constitution Of India – A Politico-Legal Narrative
- IJLLR Journal
- Dec 5, 2025
- 2 min read
Prof. Dr. P.B. Pankaja
ABSTRACT
The Preamble of the Constitution of India, as on the day of enactment and adoption, declared India as ‘Sovereign, Democratic, Republic’, though the voice for socialism was strongly echoing in the Constituent Assembly at the time of making of the Constitution. Great socialist thinkers, who were earnestly committed to rebuild Indian society on socialist lines, and to bring about socio economic revolution in Indian society, considered it as the only best option to lead the nation to achieve the goal of ‘growth with justice’. It took nearly three decades for the term ‘socialist’ to find its way into the Preamble as one of the guiding stars of governance. It was a history filled with interesting and significant politico-legal events ultimately changing India into a ‘Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic, Republic’.
The object of the research paper is to throw light upon the constitutional developments that led to the major change. It traces the reasons for conscious omission to include the term ‘socialist’ in the preamble of the Constitution initially and the reasons for conscious inclusion of the same after more than a quarter century of the working of the Constitution. It highlights the fact that the events leading to insertion of the word ‘socialist’ in the preamble is nothing but a long story of Constitutional battle between the executive and the legislature on one side and the judiciary on the other. It was a story of Fundamental Rights vs. Directive Principles of State Policy and a tug of war between Judicial Review and Parliamentary Supremacy. The scope of the paper is limited to the constitutional partnership of three organs of the state vis-a-vis land and industrial reforms up to forty-fourth amendment of the Constitution, and not beyond that.
Keywords: Socialism, Socialist, Preamble, Fundamental Rights v. Directive Principles of State Policy, Judicial Review v. Parliamentary supremacy.
