Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “Without Socio-Economic Justice, Political Justice Is Meaningless” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Without Socio-Economic Justice, Political Justice Is Meaningless

The Preamble to the Constitution of India stresses the importance of “justice—social, economic and political”. Social and economic justice is mentioned first and the political aspect comes third in order of preference. This in itself indicates that the makers of our Constitution realised the significance of these vital aspects of Justice.

Political Justice consists in giving equal voting rights to the people and granting them representation in the various bodies and institutions that the Government deems fit to set up for their welfare. But all this sounds hollow when a large portion of the populace is living below the poverty line; unemployment is constantly on the increase and economic disparities between the rich and the poor keep widening. It is an unfortunate fact of our existence, that we have not been able to provide even the basic necessities and amenities of life to our teeming millions in the world’s largest working democracy, even five decades after Independence.

Literacy and ignorance still abound in India. Free, compulsory education is sought to be provided to children in the age-group of 6 to 14 years, in the new education policy, by the turn of the century. But we have not cared to find out what keeps these children away from education at such a tender age. They have to work to augment their meager family income. They suffer from disease and malnutrition. And where is the hope that they will be absorbed in suitable jobs when they are educated in the face of the ever-rising figures of under-employment and unemployment in the country? No serious thought has gone into these problems except the platitudes mouthed by glib talking politicians.

Apart from the problem of providing the basic amenities of life to our people, we cannot achieve socio-economic justice in the country if the Government ignores the legitimate demands and grievances of certain sections of the people to rid them of their economic backwardness. Such demands must be sympathetically and immediately considered if we are to achieve Mahatma Gandhi’s cherished concept of Ram Rajya in the country. So far it has been a distant pipe dream.

Socio-economic justice also covers giving equal opportunities to all sections of the populace in their struggle to come up to a set minimum level. Once this has been achieved, reservations in respect of these categories must be done away with. Only merit should then be the sole criterion for education and employment opportunities to such people. These benefits can go to other economically backward classes. In short, we have to go a long way still in providing socio-economic justice to our people. We have only been skirting the problem so far.

 The successive government’s at the Centre and the States have been talking of economic growth with social justice and they claim to be working for this goal. But in practice, while economic growth is undoubtedly there, the necessary accompaniment—social justice is seldom assured. For millions, the quality of life is still below the accepted norms.

The equitable distribution of the gains of development so essential for social justice has not been effected so far. Mass poverty and economic inequalities at almost every step make a mockery of political democracy. If given a choice, the socially and economically hard-hit people would rather have economic justice than political rights.