Why study the philosophy

Laws and values. Some people think a constitution is just laws, and laws have nothing to do with morality. It is true that not all laws have moral content, but many are tied to values we hold deeply: a law banning discrimination on grounds of language or religion exists because we value equality. So a constitution rests on a moral vision, and we should study it with a political philosophy approach.

That approach means three things:

• Understand the conceptual structure: what terms like 'rights', 'citizenship', 'minority' and 'democracy' can mean.
• Work out a coherent vision of society and polity from those key concepts: the ideals built into the Constitution.
• Read the Constitution together with the Constituent Assembly Debates, to understand the reasons behind its values. A value is not fully understood until its justification is known.

Ideals in the Constitution are debated in legislatures, parties, the press and schools, and are sometimes twisted for short-term gain. Because the Constitution's statement of an ideal carries authority, it can settle conflicts between interpretations.

• (Japan's 1947 constitution is called the 'peace constitution': its Article 9 gives up war and armed forces. The context in which a constitution is made shapes its philosophy.)

What constitutions do:

• Limit power: modern states are very powerful and can harm some individuals and groups, so rules of the game must keep checking that tendency and stop states becoming tyrannical.
• Provide peaceful, democratic means of social transformation.
• For a people who had been colonised, a constitution is the first real exercise of political self-determination. Nehru said only an elected Constituent Assembly could frame India's constitution without outside interference, and called the Assembly 'a nation on the move', throwing off its old shell and making 'a new garment of its own making'.
• So constitutions exist not only to limit those in power but to empower those who were traditionally deprived of it.

Why look back? In the US, the constitution dates from the late 18th century, and applying that era's standards today would be odd. India's present values and ideals are still close to the framers' world: the history of our Constitution is still a history of the present.

Example (new): a housing society's rule that every flat gets one vote on repairs, whatever its size, looks like a dry rule, but it exists because the members value equal say.