SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS AND THE POSITION OF POORS IN

INDIA: A BRIEF ANALYSIS

It is commonly said and widely believed that all human are entitled to certain universal,

indivisible, interdependent and interrelated rights which are essential for human dignity.

Especially, after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there is growing

realisation about the increasing importance of the human rights for all. It is widely

acknowledged across the academic circles that the combination of civil and political rights

together with social and economic rights constitute the regime of human rights in India. It is

in this light that one can truly appreciate the significance of the incorporation by the great

learned framers of the Indian Constitution certain foresighted and futuristic provisions

guaranteeing Justice; social, political and economic to all citizens of India in the very

Preamble of the Constitution of India. Whatever be the perception of the western world

regarding these steps, their efficacy or their impact, there is least doubt that they go a long

way a very long way towards establishment of a strong legal regime for ensuring those basic

rights without which one cannot get the full opportunity to develop.

The present research paper has been motivated with the aim and objective of making an

analysis of the aforesaid provisions. The paper highlights the idea of economic justice, how it

touches the individual and social order, encompassing moral principles which may guide us

in designing our economic institutions. The paper also delves upon the objective of economic

justice for the enhancement of individuals and countries. It can be said without an iota of

doubt that in order to have a vision of a just society and a better world it is paramount that

majority of the people have liberty along with opportunity to achieve their best

prospective.
In case of India, the preamble of the Constitution encapsulates the objectives of the makers of

the Constitution to build a society where there is social, economic and political justice for

everyone and equality of status and opportunity for all. But despite several constitutional

provisions and the programmes launched by government of India from time to time for their

economic development, underprivileged section of the society still remains deprived. Such

continuous economic and social exclusion of dalits has resulted in not only material

deprivation but has also forced them out of economic main stream. Therefore, the third

section of the paper discusses the issues related to inequality, poverty, economic disparity and

discrimination of the dalits in India. In the fourth and the last section of the paper the author

on the basis of her in depth analysis based on the idea of economic justice, economic rights

and economic interpretation of statistics, social and economic action plans establishes that the

problem of dalits should not be studied from the domain of philosophical or anthropological

writings but should be taken as a major economic issue for more holistic interpretation.