Rights in the Indian Constitution, Class 11 Political Science

What Rights in the Indian Constitution is about

Weightage: Indian Constitution at Work carries 40 of the 80 theory marks in the school annual exam, shared among its chapters; project work carries the other 20 marks.Source: CBSE Political Science (028) syllabus 2026-27, Class XI course structure

Key concepts

Why rights matter: the bill of rights

NCERT section The Importance of Rights; Bill of Rights

Two cases from the chapter:

• Asian Games, 1982: contractors building flyovers and stadiums paid poor migrant workers less than the minimum wage. Social scientists petitioned the Supreme Court, arguing that paying below the minimum wage amounted to begar (forced labour), violating the right against exploitation. The court ordered that the workers get the prescribed wages.
• Machal Lalung: arrested at 23 in Assam, sent as an undertrial to a mental hospital, declared fit for trial by doctors, yet kept in 'judicial custody' for 54 years without a hearing until an NHRC team intervened in 2005, when he was 77. The right to life and liberty includes the right to a fair and speedy trial; his case shows what happens when rights exist only on paper.

Bill of rights: democracies list citizens' rights in the constitution itself; such a list, mentioned and protected by the constitution, is a bill of rights. It prohibits government from acting against individual rights and ensures a remedy if they are violated.

Protection from whom? Rights may be threatened by another person or private organisation (so government must protect them), or by organs of government itself: legislature, executive, bureaucracy or even judiciary.

History: the Motilal Nehru committee demanded a bill of rights as early as 1928. South Africa's constitution (December 1996) calls its Bill of Rights a 'cornerstone of democracy', bans discrimination on many grounds and grants an extensive range of rights (dignity, privacy, housing, health care, food, water, education, information), enforced by a special constitutional court.

Worked example

What do the Asian Games and Machal Lalung cases show about rights? (2 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. In the Asian Games case, the constitutional right against exploitation could be enforced in court, and workers got their due wages.
2. In Machal Lalung's case, the right to life and liberty (fair, speedy trial) was not implemented, so his life was wasted in custody.

Answer: Rights must be both guaranteed and actually implemented; listing them is not enough.

Fundamental rights versus ordinary rights

NCERT section Fundamental Rights in the Indian Constitution

• The Constitution lists certain rights for special protection and calls them Fundamental Rights: 'fundamental' because they are so important that they are separately listed and specially protected.
• Ordinary legal rights are protected and enforced by ordinary law and can be changed by the legislature through ordinary law-making.
• Fundamental Rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and can be changed only by amending the Constitution.
• No organ of government may act to violate them; the judiciary can declare executive or legislative actions illegal if they violate Fundamental Rights or restrict them unreasonably.
• But Fundamental Rights are not absolute: government can impose reasonable restrictions.

The side-character compares a bill of rights to a warranty card for a TV: a guarantee with a remedy if something goes wrong.

Worked example

Give two differences between Fundamental Rights and ordinary legal rights. (2 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Ordinary rights are protected by ordinary law; Fundamental Rights are guaranteed by the Constitution.
2. Ordinary rights can be changed by ordinary legislation; Fundamental Rights can be changed only by a constitutional amendment, and courts can strike down actions that violate them.

Answer: Source of protection (law versus Constitution) and method of change (ordinary law versus amendment).

Right to Equality

NCERT section Right to Equality

Provisions:

• Equality before law and equal protection of laws.
• No discrimination on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, including equal access to public places such as shops, hotels, places of entertainment, wells, bathing ghats, roads and places of worship.
• Equality of opportunity in public employment.
• Abolition of untouchability, described as one of the crudest forms of inequality.
• Abolition of titles: the state confers no titles except for excellence in military or academic fields.

Equality of opportunity and reservations: the Preamble mentions equality of status and of opportunity. In an unequal society, equal opportunity requires that government can make special schemes for children, women and socially and educationally backward classes. Article 16(4) explicitly says that reservation of posts for backward classes not adequately represented in state services does not violate the right to equality; in the Constitution's spirit, it helps fulfil equality of opportunity.

Situations in the chapter: a dalit served tea in an earthen cup at a village hotel (caste discrimination); women newsreaders over 45 barred while men of the same age continue (gender discrimination); a dalit community in Odisha's Puri district punished for refusing a degrading custom (violation of equality and dignity).

Worked example

Why does reservation not violate the right to equality? (2 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Article 16(4) explicitly states that the state may reserve posts for backward classes not adequately represented in its services.
2. In an unequal society, such special measures are needed to give real equality of opportunity, which is the Constitution's aim.

Answer: Because the Constitution itself permits it under Article 16(4), as a means to achieve real equality of opportunity.

Right to Freedom: life and liberty, preventive detention, other freedoms

NCERT section Right to Freedom

Equality and freedom are the two rights most essential to democracy. Liberty means freedom of thought, expression and action, but not freedom to do anything at all; freedoms are defined so that each person enjoys them without threatening others' freedom or law and order.

Right to life and personal liberty (Article 21):

• No person can be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.
• No arrest without being told the grounds; the right to be defended by a lawyer of one's choice; the arrested person must be produced before the nearest magistrate within 24 hours, who decides if the arrest is justified.
• The Supreme Court has expanded this right to include living with human dignity, free from exploitation, and the rights to shelter and livelihood.

Preventive detention: arrest out of an apprehension that a person may engage in unlawful activity, without the usual procedure, if the government sees a threat to law and order or national security. It can be extended only for three months, after which an advisory board reviews it. The chapter notes it has often been misused and that there is a clear tension with the right to life and liberty.

Other freedoms (each subject to restrictions): speech and expression (public order, peace, morality); assembling peacefully and without arms (government may declare assemblies of five or more unlawful in some areas, a power open to misuse); forming associations; moving freely and residing anywhere in India; practising any profession, trade or business. Also the right to education and protection against arrest and detention in certain cases.

Rights of the accused (fair trial): no one punished twice for the same offence; no law declaring an act illegal from a back date; no one compelled to give evidence against himself or herself.

Somnath Lahiri in the Constituent Assembly complained that the rights seemed framed 'from the point of view of a police constable', each followed by a proviso that almost took it away.

Worked example

Explain the safeguards available to a person who is arrested. (4 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. The person must be told the grounds of arrest.
2. The person has the right to be defended by a lawyer of his or her choice.
3. The police must produce the person before the nearest magistrate within 24 hours, and the magistrate, not the police, decides whether the arrest is justified.
4. At trial: no double punishment for the same offence, no retrospective criminal law, and no compulsion to give evidence against oneself.

Answer: Knowledge of grounds, a lawyer of choice, production before a magistrate within 24 hours, and fair-trial protections.

Right against Exploitation and Right to Freedom of Religion

NCERT section Right against Exploitation; Right to Freedom of Religion

Right against Exploitation:

• Prohibits begar (forced labour without payment) and traffic in human beings (buying and selling people as slaves).
• Forced labour was imposed in the past by landlords, moneylenders and the wealthy; some bonded labour survives, especially in brick kilns, and is now a punishable crime.
• Forbids employment of children below 14 in dangerous jobs such as factories and mines; with child labour illegal and education a fundamental right for children, this right has become more meaningful.

Right to Freedom of Religion:

• Freedom to choose and practise any religion, a hallmark of democracy, since rulers in history often persecuted or forcibly converted those of other faiths.
• Includes freedom of conscience: one may follow any religion or none; and the freedom to profess, follow and propagate religion.
• Limits: restrictions for public order, morality and health; government may act against social evils (it has banned sati, bigamy, human sacrifice). Such limits can create tension between religious groups and government.
• Conversion: the Constitution allows spreading information about one's religion to attract others, but not forcible conversion; some resent conversions as based on intimidation or inducement.
• Equality of all religions: government does not favour any religion; India has no official religion; no religious test for any public office; state institutions do not preach any religion or give religious education. These aim to sustain secularism.
• Also: freedom to manage religious affairs; no compulsion to pay taxes promoting a particular religion; rules on religious instruction in certain educational institutions.

Worked example

Why is the right to freedom of religion not an unlimited right? Give two examples of permissible restrictions. (2 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Government can restrict religious practice to protect public order, morality and health.
2. It may also act against social evils, as it did by banning sati and human sacrifice; and forcible conversion is not allowed.

Answer: Because it is subject to public order, morality and health and to social reform, as with bans on sati and forced conversion.

Cultural and Educational Rights

NCERT section Cultural and Educational Rights

• India is not a monolithic society; the Constitution treats diversity as a strength. Minorities need not adopt the majority's culture.
• Minorities are groups with a common language or religion that are outnumbered by another section in a part of the country or the whole country; they may have their own culture, language and script and have the right to conserve and develop them.
• The protection covers religious, linguistic and cultural minorities.
• All minorities, religious or linguistic, can set up their own educational institutions to preserve and develop their culture.
• When granting aid, government will not discriminate against an institution because it is managed by a minority.

Sardar Hukam Singh told the Constituent Assembly that the majority bore a heavy responsibility to make minorities feel secure, that the only safety for minorities lay in a secular state, and that demands for safeguards arose from minorities' fears about language, script and services.

The side-character notes that one can be a minority by language and a majority by religion, or a minority locally and a majority in the town: minority status is relative.

Worked example

A Gujarati-speaking association in Kolkata runs a Gujarati-medium school. Which right is it exercising, and can the State refuse the school aid because a minority manages it? (2 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Gujarati speakers are a linguistic minority in West Bengal, so they have the right to conserve their language and to set up educational institutions of their choice.
2. In granting aid, the State cannot discriminate against an institution on the ground that it is managed by a minority.

Answer: The cultural and educational right of a linguistic minority; aid cannot be refused on that ground.

Right to Constitutional Remedies and the writs

NCERT section Right to Constitutional Remedies

Writing down rights is not enough; there must be a way to realise and defend them. Dr Ambedkar called the Right to Constitutional Remedies the 'heart and soul of the constitution': it lets a citizen approach a High Court or the Supreme Court to restore any violated Fundamental Right. Courts can issue orders, directives and special orders called writs:

• Habeas corpus: the court orders that an arrested person be produced before it, and can free the person if the arrest is unlawful or unsatisfactory.
• Mandamus: issued when an office holder is not performing a legal duty and thereby infringes someone's right.
• Prohibition: issued by a higher court when a lower court has gone beyond its jurisdiction in a case.
• Quo warranto: issued when a person holds an office without being entitled to it, restraining him from acting in it.
• Certiorari: the court orders a lower court or authority to transfer a pending matter to a higher court or authority.

Other mechanisms have been created: the National Commissions for Minorities, Women and Scheduled Castes, and the National Human Rights Commission.

Worked example

Which writ would apply in each case? (a) A person is held by police without being produced in court. (b) An official refuses to issue a certificate he is legally bound to give. (2 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. (a) Habeas corpus: the court orders the person to be produced before it and can free him if the detention is unlawful.
2. (b) Mandamus: issued when an office holder is not doing a legal duty, infringing an individual's right.

Answer: (a) Habeas corpus; (b) Mandamus.

National Human Rights Commission and Fundamental Duties

NCERT section National Human Rights Commission (NHRC); Fundamental Duties of citizens

NHRC: the real test of rights is implementation for the poor and deprived. Independent groups like PUCL and PUDR act as watchdogs. In 1993 the government set up the NHRC.

• Composition: a former Chief Justice of India, a former Supreme Court judge, a former Chief Justice of a High Court, and two members with knowledge and experience of human rights.
• Functions: inquiry on its own or on a victim's petition into violations; visits to jails to study inmates' conditions; research on human rights.
• It receives thousands of complaints a year: custodial deaths and rape, disappearances, police excesses, indignity to women. Its notable interventions: disappeared youth in Punjab and investigation and trial of Gujarat riot cases.
• Limit: it has no power of prosecution; it can only recommend action to the government or courts.

Fundamental Duties:

• Added by the 42nd Amendment (1976): ten duties, such as abiding by the Constitution, defending the country, promoting harmony and protecting the environment.
• The Constitution says nothing about enforcing them.
• Importantly, the Constitution does not make rights conditional on performing duties.

Worked example

Describe the composition and one limitation of the National Human Rights Commission. (2 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. It consists of a former Chief Justice of India, a former Supreme Court judge, a former High Court Chief Justice and two members experienced in human rights.
2. It has no power to prosecute; it can only recommend action to the government or courts.

Answer: Judges and human-rights experts form it; its power is recommendatory, not prosecutorial.

Directive Principles of State Policy

NCERT section Directive Principles of State Policy

Why: the framers knew India faced the challenge of equality and well-being for all, and wanted to give policy direction, but did not want to bind future governments rigidly. So they included guidelines that are not legally enforceable (non-justiciable): courts cannot order a government to implement them. They relied on the moral force of the directives and on people holding governments responsible.

Three kinds of content:
1. Goals: welfare of the people; social, economic and political justice; a higher standard of living; equitable distribution of resources; international peace.
2. Non-justiciable rights: the right to work; an adequate livelihood; protection from economic exploitation; equal pay for men and women doing equal work; care and education in early childhood (under six).
3. Policies: promoting village panchayats and cottage industries; a uniform civil code; prohibiting alcoholic drinks; preventing the slaughter of useful cattle.

Implementation: governments passed zamindari abolition laws, nationalised banks, enacted factory laws, fixed minimum wages, promoted cottage and small industries, and made reservations for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Later steps include the right to education, panchayati raj institutions everywhere, a partial right to work through the employment guarantee programme, and the mid-day meal scheme.

Worked example

Why were the Directive Principles made non-justiciable? (2 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. The framers wanted to give policy direction for equality and welfare without binding future governments to particular policies that might not suit changing conditions or resources.
2. They trusted the moral force of the directives and the people's vigilance to make governments take them seriously.

Answer: To guide governments without rigidly binding them, relying on moral force and public accountability.

Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles: relationship and conflict

NCERT section Relationship between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles

Complementary: Fundamental Rights restrain government from doing certain things; Directive Principles urge it to do certain things. Rights mainly protect individuals; directives aim at the well-being of society.

Conflict: when governments implemented directives, they sometimes clashed with rights. Zamindari abolition laws were challenged as violating the right to property. Government amended the Constitution to give effect to directives, starting a long legal battle: the government said rights could be abridged to implement directives; the courts held that Fundamental Rights were too important to be limited even for directives.

Right to property: originally a Fundamental Right to 'acquire, possess and maintain' property, though property could be taken for public welfare. Many laws limited it after 1950.

• 1973: the Supreme Court held that the right to property was not part of the basic structure, so Parliament could abridge it by amendment.
• 1978: the 44th Amendment removed it from Fundamental Rights and made it a legal right under Article 300A.

Amendment debate: government said Parliament could amend any part; the court said Parliament could not violate Fundamental Rights. The Kesavananda Bharati case settled it: there are basic features of the Constitution that Parliament cannot change (discussed in Chapter 9).

Conclusion: Jotirao Phuley (1827-90) was among the first to see rights as including both freedom and equality; the national movement developed this into constitutional rights, and since 1950 the judiciary has protected and expanded them.

Worked example

How did the right to property become the centre of conflict between Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles, and how was it resolved? (4 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Originally the Constitution had a Fundamental Right to acquire, possess and maintain property.
2. Laws to abolish zamindari, made to implement Directive Principles, were challenged as violating this right, leading to amendments and long legal battles.
3. In 1973 the Supreme Court held the right to property was not part of the basic structure, so Parliament could abridge it.
4. The 44th Amendment (1978) removed it from the Fundamental Rights and made it a legal right under Article 300A.

Answer: Land reform for social justice clashed with the right to property; it was resolved by making property an ordinary legal right in 1978.

Rights in the Indian Constitution in real life

Each concept, met in an everyday situation. Read the situation, answer the question in your own words, then compare with the model answer. The one-line hook is what to remember.

Topics in this chapter

• Bill of Rights and the Fundamental Rights: Equality, Freedom, Against Exploitation, Religion and Cultural Rights
• Constitutional Remedies and Writs, NHRC, Fundamental Duties and the Directive Principles of State Policy

Rights in the Indian Constitution: key facts

Six Fundamental Rights

Equality; Freedom; against Exploitation; Freedom of Religion; Cultural and Educational; Constitutional Remedies

Part III of the Constitution.

Five writs

Habeas corpus	produce the person
Mandamus	do your duty
Prohibition	stop, beyond jurisdiction
Quo warranto	by what right do you hold office?
Certiorari	transfer the case up

Issued by High Courts and the Supreme Court.

Arrest safeguards

Grounds told + lawyer of choice + magistrate within 24 hours

Preventive detention: up to three months, then advisory board review.

Fair-trial rights

No double punishment + no retrospective criminal law + no self-incrimination

Rights of the accused.

Directive Principles

Goals + non-justiciable rights + policies

Not enforceable in courts; moral force.

Property timeline

1. 1.1950 Fundamental Right
2. 2.1973 not basic structure
3. 3.1978 44th Amendment
4. 4.legal right (Art. 300A)

Kesavananda Bharati: basic structure cannot be amended.

Key numbers

Motilal Nehru committee	1928
NHRC	1993
42nd Amendment	1976 (10 duties)
Child labour	banned below 14
Article 16(4)	reservations
Article 21	life and liberty

Machal Lalung: 54 years in custody.

How the school exam asks Rights in the Indian Constitution

The question patterns to expect, and the method that works for each.

Tricks to remember Rights in the Indian Constitution

Short memory aids. Say each one aloud once, then use it on a question the same day.

• Six rights: E-F-E-R-C-R

  'Every Free Educated Responsible Citizen Rules': Equality, Freedom, Exploitation (against), Religion, Cultural-educational, Remedies.

  Use it when: Listing the rights.

• Writs in plain words

  Habeas corpus = 'show me the person'; Mandamus = 'do your duty'; Prohibition = 'stop'; Quo warranto = 'by what right?'; Certiorari = 'send the file up'.

  Use it when: Writ MCQs.

• Arrest rule 1-1-24

  One reason told, one lawyer of choice, 24 hours to a magistrate.

  Use it when: Rights of the arrested.

• DPSP: G-R-P

  Goals, Rights (non-justiciable), Policies.

  Use it when: Directive Principles.

• Property path 50-73-78

  1950 fundamental, 1973 not basic, 1978 legal (300A).

  Use it when: Rights versus directives.

Rights in the Indian Constitution: exam-level solved questions

Ordered from exam level to HOTS. Cover the solution, write your own, then compare step by step.

Case-study practice (Section E style)

Read the situation, then answer every part. In a school exam set on the board pattern this is a 4-mark question split into 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 marks.

Where the marks are

How a typical answer is split into step marks. Show every step: a right final answer alone rarely earns full marks.

Where students lose marks in Rights in the Indian Constitution

The slips examiners see most often, and what to write instead.

• ✗Mistake: Calling Fundamental Rights absolute

  'Fundamental' sounds unlimited.

  Wrong working

  Fundamental Rights can never be restricted.

  Right working

  Government can impose reasonable restrictions (public order, morality, health); courts strike down only unreasonable ones.

  ✓Do this: Add 'subject to reasonable restrictions' every time.

  Usually costs: 1 mark in MCQs and short answers.

• ✗Mistake: Mixing up the writs

  Latin names are unfamiliar.

  Wrong working

  Mandamus frees an unlawfully detained person.

  Right working

  Habeas corpus produces and frees the detained; mandamus commands a duty; quo warranto questions title to office; prohibition and certiorari control lower courts.

  ✓Do this: Use the memory trick below for each writ.

  Usually costs: 1 mark per writ.

• ✗Mistake: Treating reservation as against equality

  Equal treatment is confused with identical treatment.

  Wrong working

  Reservation violates the Right to Equality.

  Right working

  Article 16(4) expressly permits it; it serves equality of opportunity in an unequal society.

  ✓Do this: Quote Article 16(4) in any reservation question.

  Usually costs: Reasoning marks.

• ✗Mistake: Saying the right to property is still a Fundamental Right

  Old textbooks and lists include it.

  Wrong working

  Property is a Fundamental Right under Part III.

  Right working

  The 44th Amendment (1978) made it a legal right under Article 300A.

  ✓Do this: Property = 300A, not Part III.

  Usually costs: 1 mark.

• ✗Mistake: Writing that duties are a precondition for rights

  Students assume rights must be earned.

  Wrong working

  Citizens who do not perform duties lose their rights.

  Right working

  The Constitution does not make rights conditional on duties, and has no method to enforce duties.

  ✓Do this: Duties: 42nd Amendment, ten, unenforced, not a condition.

  Usually costs: 1 mark in statement MCQs.

• ✗Mistake: Overstating the NHRC's power

  Its name suggests authority.

  Wrong working

  The NHRC can prosecute and punish violators.

  Right working

  It inquires and recommends; it has no power of prosecution.

  ✓Do this: NHRC = inquire, visit, research, recommend.

  Usually costs: 1-2 marks.

NCERT exercise guide: Rights in the Indian Constitution

What each exercise in the NCERT chapter tests, how to approach it, and a question of the same kind solved step by step. Questions here are written in our own words.

Practice questions on Rights in the Indian Constitution

Write each answer on paper first. Open the hint only if you are stuck, and the answer only when you have finished.

1. Q1 · 1 mark · MCQExam level

   Who called the Right to Constitutional Remedies the 'heart and soul of the constitution'?
   (a) Jawaharlal Nehru
   (b) Dr B.R. Ambedkar
   (c) Sardar Patel
   (d) Somnath Lahiri

   Hint

   Chairman of the Drafting Committee.

   Answer

   (b) Dr B.R. Ambedkar.

2. Q2 · 1 mark · MCQExam level

   Preventive detention can be extended for at most ______ before review by an advisory board.
   (a) 24 hours
   (b) one month
   (c) three months
   (d) one year

   Hint

   Not the arrest rule.

   Answer

   (c) Three months.

3. Q3 · 1 mark · MCQHarder exam level

   Which statement about minorities under the Indian Constitution is correct?
   (a) Only religious minorities may set up their own educational institutions.
   (b) A group can be a minority only at the national level.
   (c) Linguistic minorities have the right to conserve their language and script.
   (d) Government aid may be given only to minority-run schools.

   Hint

   Religious, linguistic and cultural minorities; part of the country or the whole.

   Answer

   (c).

4. Q4 · 1 mark · MCQHarder exam level

   Consider the statements:
   1. The Fundamental Duties were added by the 42nd Amendment.
   2. Enjoyment of rights depends on performance of duties.
   3. The Constitution provides no method to enforce the duties.
   Which are correct?
   (a) 1 and 2
   (b) 1 and 3
   (c) 2 and 3
   (d) 1, 2 and 3

   Hint

   Rights are not conditional on duties.

   Answer

   (b) 1 and 3.

5. Q5 · 1 mark · Assertion-reasonExam level

   Assertion (A): The right to property is no longer a Fundamental Right.
   Reason (R): The 44th Amendment (1978) made it a legal right under Article 300A.
   Choose the correct option as in the standard A-R format.

   Hint

   What did the amendment do?

   Answer

   (a) Both true; R explains A.

6. Q6 · 1 mark · MCQHarder exam level

   Match:
   A. Equal pay for equal work 1. Fundamental Right
   B. Abolition of untouchability 2. Directive Principle (non-justiciable right)
   C. Uniform civil code 3. Directive Principle (policy)
   D. Promotion of international peace 4. Directive Principle (goal)
   (a) A-2, B-1, C-3, D-4
   (b) A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4
   (c) A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3
   (d) A-3, B-1, C-2, D-4

   Hint

   Rights, goals, policies.

   Answer

   (a).

7. Q7 · 2 marks · Short answerExam level

   What is a bill of rights? What two things does it do? (2 marks)

   Hint

   Prohibition and remedy.

   Answer

   A list of citizens' rights mentioned and protected in the constitution itself. It prohibits government from acting against those rights and ensures a remedy if they are violated.

8. Q8 · 2 marks · Short answerExam level

   Explain how the Supreme Court has expanded the right to life and personal liberty. (2 marks)

   Hint

   Dignity, shelter, livelihood.

   Answer

   It has held that the right includes living with human dignity free from exploitation, and the rights to shelter and livelihood, since no one can live without the means of living.

9. Q9 · 4 marks · Short answerHOTS / competency

   A state government decides to give building grants only to schools run by majority-community trusts, arguing that 'minorities already have their own special rights'. Examine this policy with reference to the Fundamental Rights. (4 marks)

   Hint

   Aid without discrimination; equality.

   Answer

   The policy violates Cultural and Educational Rights: all minorities may set up their own educational institutions, and in granting aid the State may not discriminate against an institution because a minority manages it. It also offends the Right to Equality, as the State treats institutions differently on the ground of religion alone. The government's argument misreads minority rights: they are added protections so that minorities can conserve their culture without fear, not a reason to deny them benefits available to all. The trusts could challenge the policy in a High Court or the Supreme Court.

10. Q10 · 6 marks · Long answerHarder exam level

    In what ways are Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles complementary, and in what ways have they conflicted? (6 marks)

    Hint

    Restrain versus urge; property; Kesavananda.

    Answer

    Complementary: rights restrain government, directives urge it to act; rights protect individuals, directives aim at social welfare; together they seek a democratic and just society. Conflict: implementing directives (zamindari abolition) clashed with the right to property; government amended the Constitution, courts resisted; government argued rights could be abridged for directives, courts held rights sacred. Resolution: 1973 ruling that property is not basic structure; 44th Amendment (1978) made property a legal right; Kesavananda Bharati laid down that basic features cannot be amended.

11. Q11 · 6 marks · Long answerHOTS / competency

    'Citizens who do not perform their Fundamental Duties should lose their Fundamental Rights.' Evaluate this view. (6 marks)

    Hint

    What does the Constitution say about the link between duties and rights?

    Answer

    Arguments for: the ten Fundamental Duties added by the 42nd Amendment (1976), such as abiding by the Constitution, promoting harmony and protecting the environment, express the idea that citizens owe something in return for rights. Arguments against: (1) the Constitution itself does not make rights conditional on duties and says nothing about enforcing duties, so the inclusion of duties has not changed the status of rights; (2) rights exist to protect individuals against the State, and if the State could decide who had 'earned' them, it could deny rights to dissenters or the poor; (3) the people most in need of rights, such as bonded labourers or undertrials like Machal Lalung, are often the least able to defend themselves; (4) it is unclear who would judge whether duties were performed. Conclusion: duties are valuable as a civic ideal, but making rights conditional on them would undermine the guarantee that makes rights fundamental.

12. Q12 · 2 marks · Short answerExam level

    Why do Directive Principles still matter if they cannot be enforced in court? (2 marks)

    Hint

    Moral force; laws made.

    Answer

    They carry moral force and let people hold governments accountable; governments have given effect to many through laws, such as minimum wages, bank nationalisation, panchayati raj, the right to education and mid-day meals.

Test your recall

Answer in your head or on paper first, then open the card. Pulling an answer out of memory makes it stick far better than re-reading.

1. 1.Which committee demanded a bill of rights in 1928?Show answer

   The Motilal Nehru committee.

2. 2.How long was Machal Lalung kept in custody?Show answer

   54 years, until 2005.

3. 3.What does Article 16(4) permit?Show answer

   Reservation of posts for backward classes not adequately represented in state services.

4. 4.Below what age are children barred from hazardous jobs?Show answer

   14 years.

5. 5.Name three fair-trial rights of the accused.Show answer

   No double punishment, no retrospective criminal law, no compulsion to give evidence against oneself.

6. 6.When was the NHRC set up?Show answer

   In 1993.

7. 7.What does 'non-justiciable' mean?Show answer

   Not enforceable by courts.

8. 8.How many Fundamental Duties were listed by the 42nd Amendment?Show answer

   Ten.

9. 9.Which case laid down that Parliament cannot change the basic features of the Constitution?Show answer

   Kesavananda Bharati.

Quick revision checklist

The night before the exam: can you do each of these without looking?

• ☐Rights must be listed and implemented: Asian Games workers versus Machal Lalung.
• ☐Bill of rights prohibits violation by government and ensures a remedy.
• ☐Fundamental Rights: guaranteed by the Constitution, changed only by amendment, not absolute.
• ☐Equality: before law, no discrimination, equal opportunity (Art. 16(4) reservations), untouchability and titles abolished.
• ☐Freedom: life and liberty (Art. 21: dignity, shelter, livelihood), arrest safeguards, preventive detention, six freedoms, fair trial.
• ☐Against exploitation: no begar, trafficking, or child labour under 14 in hazardous work.
• ☐Religion: conscience, profess, practise, propagate; limits for order, morality, health; no official religion.
• ☐Cultural and educational: minorities conserve culture, set up institutions, no aid discrimination.
• ☐Constitutional remedies: heart and soul; five writs; NHRC (1993) recommends, cannot prosecute.
• ☐DPSP: goals, non-justiciable rights, policies; implemented through laws and schemes.
• ☐Conflict over property: 1973 ruling, 44th Amendment (1978), Art. 300A; Kesavananda basic structure.

Rights in the Indian Constitution: frequently asked questions