Fraternity and the Constitution: Promise in Peril
Why in News
- In a time of growing social distrust, the Constitution’s promise of fraternity has become more relevant than ever.
- Fraternity is the fourth value in the Preamble alongside justice, liberty and equality but remains largely neglected.
About Fraternity in the Preamble
- Every schoolchild can recite the Preamble but fraternity has passed almost unnoticed in public discourse.
- The framers placed fraternity deliberately in the same sentence as justice, liberty and equality giving it equal constitutional weight.
- B.R. Ambedkar warned in his final Constituent Assembly address that without fraternity, liberty and equality would be no deeper than coats of paint.
- The Constitution’s concern with fraternity did not end with the Preamble. Article 51A(e) makes it a Fundamental Duty of every citizen to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood.
Constitutional Basis
- Article 14 guarantees equality before the law to all citizens.
- Articles 15 and 25 protect citizens against discrimination and safeguard freedom of faith.
- Article 51A(e) imposes a duty to promote harmony and common brotherhood among citizens.
- Sections 153A, 153B, 295A and 505 of the IPC contain provisions protecting civic peace and preventing communal hostility.
- These provisions exist to prevent systematic destruction of fraternity not to create it from nothing.
- Courts can act against hatred, intimidation and attacks on equal citizenship but courts cannot command affection.
Concerns: Erosion of Social Trust and Harmony
- Erosion of Trust: Trust is the invisible infrastructure of a functioning society that law alone cannot restore.
- Thinner Mutual Understanding: Public debate has grown louder and more vicious while genuine understanding has become thinner.
- Citizenship Exodus: Roughly 21 lakh Indians surrender citizenship every year reflecting deep social and civic disillusionment.
- Economic Consequence: Punjab’s communal discord caused it to rank 18th in economic growth among 21 major states between 2014-15 and 2022-23.
- Fraternity Failures: Lynchings, targeted demolitions and normalised communal hostility are fraternity failures not merely law-and-order problems.
- Investor Confidence: When such acts go unpunished they send a signal to every entrepreneur, investor and family weighing India’s future.
- Prolonged Scars: Social conflict leaves economic scars that persist long after the headlines disappear.
Way Forward: Restoring Fraternity
- Community Responsibility: No court can manufacture mutual respect and communities must build what law cannot create.
- Legal Role: Law can prevent systematic destruction of fraternity but cannot command affection or belonging among citizens.
- Political Restraint: Polarisation delivering short-term political advantage cannot contain its long-term devastating economic consequences.
- Unified Constitutional Vision: The framers placed all four values together for a reason and it is time governance reflected the same.
- Enforcement Without Impunity: Communal acts must not go unpunished as impunity signals that fraternity failures carry no consequences.
Conclusion: Fraternity is not a pious wish inscribed in a preamble and ceremonially quoted on national occasions. It is the social oxygen without which neither liberty nor equality can survive. Ambedkar warned us three quarters of a century ago. We are only beginning to see the cracks now.
Source: Indian Express
