Constitution, Law, Education And Social Change | Sociology Optional for UPSC (Notes) PDF Download

Constitution, Law &  Social Change 

• India is a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic with a parliamentary system of government. The Republic is governed in terms of the Constitution, which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949 and came into force on 26 January 1950. The Constitution of India has the distinction of being the lengthiest written constitution in the world. It contains provision not only for the smooth democratic functioning o of the governments of the Union and the State but also for ensuring equality and liberty to the citizens.

The Constitution of India is a radical document

There are provisions which provide channels for all around development of the people. In this sense, the Constitution is the prime mover of social change . Some of these constitutional provisions have been discussed here to illustrate the point.

Fundamental Rights
The Constitution of India has provided some basic right to all citizens. These are known as Fundamental Rights. These are fundamental because. These are essential for civilized human existence. In the context of our Constitution. These are called fundamental because these are protected by the written constitution and cannot be altered without amending the Constitution.
There are six. categories of fundamental rights. Article 12 to 35 contained in Part III on the Constitution deal with these rights. These are

• Right to equality: According to this provision the stare shall not deny to any person equality before law. it also prohibited the state from discriminating against my individual on ground of religion, race caste, gender or place of birth. if further provide equality of opportunity in matter of public employment Abolition of untouched ability in any form has been specified by Article 17.
• Right of Freedom: This right consists Freedom of (a) speech and, expression (b) peaceful assembly without arms; (c).forming association: and Unions (d) freemovement throughout the territory of India; (e) residence and settlement in any part of the country: and (f) practice of any profession, occupation, or business.
• Right against Exploitation: It prohibits all forms of forced labour, child labour and traffic in human beings.
• Right to Freedom of Religion: Every person has the right to profess, practice and propagate any religion. No person is compelled to pay taxes for the management of any particular religion. According to it, no personed to impart religious instructions in stateowned educational institution.
• Cultural and Educational Rights: Every section of citizen has the right to conserve its distinct culture, language and script. further are minority whether based on religion or language have the right to established and administer educational institutions of their Choice.
• Right to Constitutional Remedies: Under the every person have the right to seek justice for the enforcement of Fundamental right.

Directive Principles of State Policy

• The Constitution lays down certain Directive Principle of state policy. Like the Fundamental Rights, the ideals behind the principle were rooted in our freedom struggle. Leaders of the freedoms struggle strived not only for political freedom but also for social and economic upliftment of the toiling millions. These Principles, were inserted in the Constitution to provide guideline for the determination of Policy and Actions to be undertaken by the state after the Independence. Articles' 36 to 51 of Part IV of Constitution deal with these principle.
• The significant aspect of the directive principles is that the State shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting effectively as it may a social order in which justice—social, economic political shall inform all the institutions the national life. Keeping this objective in view the state shall secure (a) adequate mean of live hood for all citizen (b) control and distribution of wealth so as to Sub serve the common good (c) equal pay of equal work (d) health and strength for all from economic avocation and (e) protection of child labour
• The state is expected to take steps and secure other social; economic political programmes.  Some  other programmes include (a) organisation of village panchayats, (b) right to work and to education, (c) uniform civil code for Citizens, (d) provision for free and compulsory education, (e) promotion of educational and economic interests of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker Sections and (f) separation of the judiciary from the executive.
• It is, however, important to note that there is one basic different between the fundamental Right and the Directive Principles of the State the violation of the former. can be challenged in the court of law. the letter is not enforceable' by any court. In other words, if a citizen's fundamental right are curtailed,' she/he can seek justice from the court. But if the state does not undertake any programme provided for in the Directive principle; she he cannot move the court for his its enforcement. It does not, however means that these directive Principles have. no value. The Constitution clearly states that directive principles are, nevertheless, fundamental in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws.

Fundamental Duties
The Constitution of India has also enumerated fundamental duties for the citizen s. By the 42nd amendment of the constitution adopted in 1976, Article 51A was inserted in chapter IVA of the constitution. Accordingly it shall be the duty of every citizen of India:

• To abide the constitution
• To cherish and follow the noble ideas which inspired our national struggle for freedom
• To uphold and protect the sovereignty and integrity of the country
• To defend the country and render national services
• To promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious linguisticand  regional or sectional diversities to renounce practice derogatory to the dignity of women
• To preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture
• To protect the natural environment
• To develop the scientific temper
• To safeguard public property and to abjure violence; and
• To strive towards. in all sphere's of individual and collective activity.

We have discussed, so far, some of the general provisions in the Constitution of India having implications for social change. The Constitution also makes some special provision. for the deprived and disadvantaged groups of population such as women , children, Scheduled Castes,' Scheduled Tribe Classes and other backward classes and Minorities.
These special provisions essentially emanate from the basis feature of our constitution mention above Let us now examine these special constitutional provisions.

Women
While Article 14 of the Constitutions of India confers equal rights and opportunities for women and the men in political, economic and social spheres, Article 15 prohibits discrimination against any citizen on the grounds of gender. Article 15 (3) empowers the State to make affirmative discrimination in favour of women. Similarly, Article 39 enjoins upon the state to make provision vide equal means of livelihood and equal to pay for equal work. Article 42 directs the State to make provisions for ensuring just and human condition of work and maternity relief. Finally, Article 51 A Imposes a Fundamental Duty on every citizen to renounce the practices d dignity of women.

Children
Realizing that children have neither a voice nor political power, the constitution of India lays down certain special safeguards for them. As in case of women Article 15 (3) empowers state to make special provisions in favor of children Article 24 prohibits employment of children below 14 years of age in any factory or mines or in other hazardous occupations. Furthermore, Articles 45 provides for free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14 years.

Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes

• We have already seen how the founding fathers of our Constitution wished to secure social, economic and political equality for all the citizens of the country. However, it was realized that this objective could not be achieved unless persons belonging to special disadvantaged groups  were provided special protection to emancipate them from centuriesold prejudices and exploitation. previous were therefore incorporated in the constitution to promote their economic educational and social development.
• It is against this background that the two types of reservation are available to the members of the backward classes under the constitution. They are reservations of seats in the Lok Sabha the Vidhan Sabha and the various Panchayati Raj bodies and (b) reservation in government services while the reservation of seats in the Lok Sabha, the Vidhan Sabha and the Panchayati Raj the bodies are available .to the members of the SCs and STs the Provision of reservation for the OBCs is available to all the three category of people
• Moreover under Article 244 (2) special provisions have been made for the tribal areas in the states of Assam Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.

Constitutional Safeguards for the Minorities

• Under the constitution of India certain safeguard have been granted to the religious and linguistic minorities Articles 29, and 30 of the Constitution seek to protect the inserts  of minorities  to conserve their language   script  or culture. They may establish and administer educational Institutions of their choice.
• Article 350 A provides for instructions in the mother tongue at the primary stage of education belonging to linguistic minorities. Article 350B provide for a Special Officer to investigate all matters relating to the safeguards for ling minorities. It is evident from above that provisions of the Indian Constitution are exhaustive and they have helped to design a strong democratic polity under which. equality and justice for all the citizens can be achieved. The Constitution has, thus, created an environment for ushering in an era of effective social change. It has acted not only as a facilitator of change but has also encouraged and promoted economic and social development. Moreover, it has defined and guided the strategy of planning which was adopted and fostered .Subsequently, in the Country. The constitution is the driving force effecting socioeconomic reform in the country through the process of amendment. A large number of constitutional amendments have directed, controlled and regulated almost all activity of the society. The process of social change leading to socioeconomic transformation of the Indian society was accelerated by these enactments. Some of these have influenced the lifestyle of the Indian people.
• In the present century, education has become the principle avenue of opportunity in all developed and developing societies. Realizing that the avenue of opportunity is provided by the, educational system parents have encouraged their children to go further and further in school. Amount of education is a good indicator of socioeconomic status form lower working class up through middle class; for education lead to economic opportunity, it is through education, young people secure higher status jobs than their parents with higher incomes they come to associates with person of higher status and adopt their ways. Thus education provides the channel not only to better socioeconomic status, but also to social mobility in the broader sense.
  
  Education is seen as the key to a better future
• As a general statement of the mobility generating role of education, this is true. An Industrial society like the United States or Great Britain places increasing emphasis on the attainment both of the skills acquired in elementary secondary the skill for a given job. The educational system is expected to provide opportunity mobility by selecting and training the most able and industrious youth for higher status position in society.
• The school system primarily does this job. The principle of gradation of children in schools according to their ability to meet standards allows those who succeed to advance while those who fail to drop out. In this way the educational system distributes the younger generation within the larger society. It places those With the greater ability and training in higher positions and those with the lesser ability and training in lower ones. Thus 'education, in a broad sense, tends to generate vertical social mobility by assisting young people to move up the social scale, by preparing them for a higher status occupation than that of their parents, by increasing their earning power, and by giving them more of general knowledge of the past and the present which marks middle class people.
• But in real life this mobility generating role of education is counteracted by several factors: wealth, social class, castes, financial and occupational status of the family, Modern industrial societies, which established mass literacy for the first time to quote Bottomore did  not by this means remove the educational distinctions between different social strata. The educational system weather in industrial societies or in developing societies like India tends to create and maintain a broad division between  elites and masses between  education of intellectual and for manual occupations. Such different within the education system is closed like to the system of social satisfaction. The higher we look up the education ladder the more the social economic effect of parental status and attitudes .outweigh the factor of sheer Individual ability in determining the changes of further education and hence to great extent occupational attainment and provide social mobility Practically e' everyone realizes that growing up in a low in come strata is not conducive to the attainment of a higher social status later. Evidence shows that most lower are disadvantaged before they enter school and are not able to achieve much success through the school or other social institution . 
• The 1972 British Study conducted at Nuffield College (Halsey, 1976) suggests that the effect of education on mobility in recent decades may well have been as much or more in the direction of perpetuating and unfreezing the social class structure. Institutionally, education is the principal agent of achievement. But at the same time, ascriptive forces are at work in the passing of occupational status between generations. There can be little doubt that the educational system now affords nominally greater, chances of upward social mobility for the childre n of low social status than before. But the nature of the stratification system itself functions so as to curtail the possibility of substantial and long range mobility. In modern capitalist societies the educational system develops, sorts, and selects person to fill the hierarchical positions of modern bureaucratic organizations so as to maintain the capitalist social relations of production. The social relations of the larger society are reproduced in the school in a way that tends to reproduce the class structure later, as the Marxists argue.
• In summary, functionalism in' the USA, egalitarian reform of opportunity in Europe and human capital theory in economics all these asserted casual linkage between amounts of schooling and the economic advertisement of both individuals and societies. They also implied that with Industrialization the need for technologically educated labour and undermines classes and other ascriptive system of stratification and that educational credentials promote social mobility However, statistical and field research in numerous society revealed a  persistent link between social class origin , and achievement and suggested that only limited social mobility occurred through the gave rise to intense controversy over the determinants of educability of groups disadvantaged by class and ethnic background. Sociologic studies have indicated a wide range of material, cultural and cognitive factor like to depress intellectual development
• This mean that the educational system can function both as a route to mobility for some people and a barrier for others, even though some social Scientists speak to the educational system', as being either a force' of meritocracy and egalitarianism or a means by which the existing social structures perpetuate.