1.1 Basic concepts in philosophy of education
Philosophy of education is the branch of applied or practical philosophy concerned with the nature and aims of education and the philosophical problems arising from educational theory and practice.
Dr. K.M. Chetty in his paper “Philosophy o f Education in the Changing World Order” wrote, “in the philosophy o f education, both philosophers and educators who come together should have a common concern and commitment about the nature o f education that is required to uphold the dignity o f human beings. They should keep in their mind the different values that go into safeguarding the whole humanity. It is with this broader perspective that both philosophers and educators join together to build a philosophy of education." Therefore the chief activity of the philosophy of education is to bring out its nature of education and the values which safeguard the whole humanity.
The Indian system of the philosophy of education is specially speculative and normative in nature. The Indian philosophy of education was initially laid down by the Vedas. According to the Vedic view the world is pervaded by divinity and the aim of every living being is to achieve the liberation. This is possible by following one’s dharma. The same normative value is followed by Buddhist’s philosophy of education in a refined manner, which presented a developed system of education, well known not only in India but throughout the Asia. In modern India Swami Vivekananda, Annie Besant, Sri Aurobindo and different thinkers laid it out emphasizing upon education as a means of character development. By education Gandhi meant ‘an all round drawing out of the best in child and man— body, mind and spirit’. Gandhi inculcated the philosophy of education which is character-building through development of values. Gandhi wanted to change society with the help of basic education by developing social value through social control. Rabindra Nath Tagore also emphasizes upon synthesis of individual and social aspects. Otherwise education is bound to be crippled. Synthesis of the two will prepare the individual to sacrifice for the service of the country. Vivekananda believes that control of the mind should be taught first. He uttered an eternal truth, which not only the youth, but people of all age-groups and of all kinds have to absorb. Dr. Ambedkar asserts that education is for the development of the mind and the human personality. As a humanist he had a preference for humanist education which indicates the effort of man to rediscover himself as a free being, rather than as a child of the church or of the state. If the mind is controlled, individual and social life can be peaceful and harmonious.
Many problems of educational practice that raise philosophical issues fall under this heading. Which subjects are most worth teaching or learning? What constitutes knowledge of them, and is such knowledge discovered or constructed? Should there be a single, common curriculum for all students, or should different students study different subjects, depending on their needs or interests, as Dewey thought? If the latter, should students be tracked according to ability? Should less-able students be directed to vocational studies? Is there even a legitimate distinction to be drawn between academic and vocational education? More broadly, should students be grouped together—according to age, ability, gender, race, culture, socioeconomic status, or some other characteristic—or should educators seek diversity in the classroom along any or all of these dimensions?
Whatever the curriculum, how should students be taught? Should they be regarded as “blank slates” and expected to absorb information passively, as Locke’s conception of the mind as a tabula rasa suggests, or should they rather be understood as active learners, encouraged to engage in self-directed discovery and learning, as Dewey and many psychologists and educators have held? How, more generally, should teaching be conceived and conducted? Should all students be expected to learn the same things from their studies? If not, as many argue, does it make sense to utilize standardized testing to measure educational outcome, attainment, or success? What are the effects of grading and evaluation in general and of high-stakes standardized testing in particular? Some have argued that any sort of grading or evaluation is educationally counterproductive because it inhibits cooperation and undermines any natural motivation to learn. More recently, critics of high-stakes testing have argued that the effects of such testing are largely negative—dilution (“dumbing down”) of the curriculum, teaching to the test, undue pressure on both students and teachers, and distraction from the real purposes of schooling. If these claims are correct, how should the seemingly legitimate demands of parents, administrators, and politicians for accountability from teachers and schools be met? These are complex matters, involving philosophical questions concerning the aims and legitimate means of education and the nature of the human mind, the psychology of learning (and of teaching), the organizational (and political) demands of schooling, and a host of other matters to which social-scientific research is relevant.
Finally, here fall questions concerning the aims of particular curriculum areas. For example, should science education aim at conveying to students merely the content of current theories or rather an understanding of scientific method, a grasp of the tentativeness and fallibility of scientific hypotheses, and an understanding of the criteria by which theories are evaluated? Should science classes focus solely on current theories, or should they include attention to the history, philosophy, and sociology of the subject? Should they seek to impart only beliefs or also skills? Similar questions can be asked of nearly every curriculum area; they are at least partly philosophical and so are routinely addressed by philosophers of education as well as by curriculum theorists and subject-matter specialists.
1.2 Philosophies of Education
Definition: Philosophy is an attempt to think truly about human experience or to make out whole experience intelligible.
Traditional philosophies of education
1. Idealism: Plato- father of idealism
Definition: System of thought that emphasizes the importance of mind, soul or spirit. Idealism believes in refined wisdom.
Principles of idealism:
· Presence of universal mind.
· Regards man as a spiritual being.
· The world of ideas and values are superior than the materialistic world.
· The real knowledge is perceived in mind.
Idealism & aims of education
· Self-realization
· Exaltation of personality through self-realization
· Universal education
· Development of inventive and creative powers
· Conservation, promotion and transmission of cultural heritages
· Bringing out or the enrichment of the cultural environment
· Development of moral sense
· Cultivation of spiritual values.
Teaching methods
· Lecture- discussion method
· Excursion
· Question method
· Project method
2. Naturalism: Rousseau & Aristotle
Definition: is a system denying anything in reality that has supernatural significance. Truth can be discovered only through nature.
Principles
· Child centered education
· Education as the natural development of the child’s power and capacities
· Negative education in early childhood
· Education should be based on child's psychology
· The role of teacher should be that of a guide
Naturalism and methods of teaching
· Learning by doing
· Play way method
· Observation and experimentation
· Self education or self-effort naturalism and methods of teaching
3. Pragmatism: John Dewey, William James, Charles Saunders Pierce
Definition: according to Ross, pragmatism is essentially a humanistic philosophy maintaining that man creates his own values in course of activity, that reality is still, in making and awaits its part of completion from the future.
Principles of pragmatism
· Man is considered as essentially a biological and social organism.
· Knowledge should be experimentally verified and it should be useful to the learner. Pragmatism has faith in man's capacity to shape his destiny.
· There are no absolute values, all values are relative. What works as useful becomes a value.
· Only those theories which can work in practical situations are true.
· Pragmatist is more concerned with the present and immediate future.
· Pragmatism accepts only the knowledge which is empirical, i.e., which can be experienced at sensory level.
· Only those ideas which can be realized in life are real.
Pragmatism and methods of teaching
· Principle of progressive learning
· Principle of learning by doing
· Principle of integration
Pragmatism and aims of education
· Harmonious development of the individual
· Continuous experience
· Social efficiency
4. Existentialism: Maxine Greene, George Keller, Van Cleve Morrisu
• European philosophy
• Popular after world war 2nd
Principle of Existentialism
· existence precedes essence
· no inborn human nature
· centre of existence is man rather than truths, laws
· man is the maker & master of the culture
· Man imposes a meaning on his or her universe.
· We are born and exist & then we ourselves freely determines our essence.
Existentialism and curriculum
· The curriculum would avoid systematic knowledge on structured disciplines
· Students are free to select from many available learning situations
· The learners choose the knowledge they wish to possess
Existentialism and education
· Choices that each person has to make and that education is a process of developing consciousness about the freedom to choose and the meaning of and responsibility for one's choices.
Existentialism and teacher
· Teacher cultivates personal choice and individual self-definition.
Existentialism and methods of teaching
· Self-expressive activities
· Experimentation
· Methods and media that illustrate emotions, feeling and insights.
5. Humanism: Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Malcolm Knowles
Definition: An approach in study, philosophy, or practice that focuses on human values and concerns.
A system of thought that rejects religious beliefs and centers on humans and their values, capacities, and worth.
Principles
1) Students' learning should be self-directed.
2) Schools should produce students who want and know how to learn.
3) The only form of meaningful evaluation is self-evaluation.
4) Feelings, as well as knowledge, are important in the learning process.
5) Students learn best in a nonthreatening environment.
Classroom implication
Students
· Curriculum is up to the students. They learn what they want to learn, when they want to learn it. It is based on students will know what lessons will be useful to them and which is just a waste of time.
· as long as students have a passion or drive to learn this theory becomes easy for teachers.
· Students that don’t have that drive to learn will either need to be pushed by a teacher or parent or try another teaching theory, because if students don’t want to learn they won’t.
Teacher
· Teachers would almost guide students as they set off into their own educational journey to learn.
· Facilitating students would be the main role of teachers. Also being careful not to force what to learn but rather force wanting to learn something on the student is genuinely interested in.
1.3 Indian Philosophers ( Aurobindo, Gandhi, Tagore, Krishna, Murthy)
EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF SRI AUROBINDO GHOSH
Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), the great educationist of India, has set forth his philosophy in the life Divine. He bases his philosophy on the original Vedanta of the Upanishadas. Sri Aurobindo believes that earlier Vedanta represent and integral or balanced view of life. It implies healthy integration of God and the man or world, renunciation and enjoyment, freedom of the soul and action of nature, being and becoming, the one and many, Vidya and Avidya, knowledge and works, and birth and release.
Sri Aurobindo Ghosh was an Idealistic to the core. His Idealistic philosophy of life was based upon Vedantic philosophy of Upanishad. He maintains that the kind of education, we need in our country, is an education “proper to the Indian soul and need and temperament and culture that we are in quest of, not indeed something faithful merely to the past, but to the developing soul of India, to her future need, to the greatness of her coming self creation, to her eternal spirit.”
The guiding principle of Sri Aurobindo's Educational Philosophy was the awakening of the individual as a spiritual being. It should be related to life truth and self mastery by the child. Sri Aurobindo made a five-fold classification of human nature i.e. the physical, the mental,the psychic and the spiritual, corresponding to five aspects of education – physical education, vital education, mental education, psychic education and spiritual or supermental education. Physical education includes control over physical functions, harmonious development of physical movements, over powering physical limitations and the awareness of body consciousness. Sri Aurobindo lays stress upon games and sports because he felt that these were essential for renewing energy. Vital education was the most important point in integral education. Sri Aurobindo called the vital being of man – the life nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, reaction of the desire – soul in man and of all that play a possessive and other related instincts, anger, fear, speed etc. that belong to this field of nature. Mental education included cognition, ideas and intelligence. The unique contribution of Sri Aurobindo regarding mental education was that ideas should be continually organized around a central thought. Psychic education was the special contribution of Sri Aurobindo to education systems. The key to an integral personality was the discovery of man s psychic nature. The educational theory of Sri Aurobindo ! aimed at the development of the latent powers of the child, training of six senses, training of logical faculties, physical education, principle of freedom, moral and religious education and above all, training for the spiritualization of the individual.
Sri Aurobindo principles of teaching
1. Nothing Can Be Taught: The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught. The teacher is not an instructor or task master he is a helper and guide. The teacher's work is to suggest and not to impose on the mind of the student but helps him to perfect his mind, the instrument of knowledge and encourages him every way in this process.
2. Mind Has to be Consulted In Its Growth: The second principle is that the mind has to be consulted in its growth. “The idea of hammering the child into the shape desired by the parent or teacher is a barbarous and ignorant superstition.”
3. To Work from the Known to the Unknown: The third principle of teaching is to work from the near to the far, from the known to the unknown. Man's nature is mold by his soul's past his heredity and his environment. The past is the foundation, the present is the material and future is the aim – and each must find its due and natural place in any national system of education.
EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF MAHATMA GANDHI
M. K. Gandhi is known as the greatest teacher of mankind for all times to come – “a prophet of its spiritual regeneration.” As a political thinker and social reformer his contributions towards the domain of education is not any way less.
Gandhiji’s educational philosophy is dynamic and realistic. Gandhiji’s vision on education was truly civilized for the betterment of society as well as whole country. There is no question of surprising that he developed from faith on education. Education not only educates the people but brings a new change in the society. His experience of South-Africa not only changed his outlook but also helped him to see the real picture of whole world. It appears that many of the views expressed in earlier writing find in Gandhian thoughts on education. The emphasis on body, heart, mind and spirit in the educational process is most visible one. Gandhiji saw the real situation of world which is full of suffering from immense crises from many sides. Many crises, conflict, hatred and distrust between one community and the another are growing very fast. The real difficulty is that people have no idea that what type of education is perfect. We assess the value of education in the same was as we assess the value of other articles are lying around us or in our society.
This point of view manifests that materialistic spirit. The foundation of basic education is useful because its goal is to impart such skill to Indian children by which they can become self-dependent earning hands. According to Gandhiji “My idea is not merely to teach a particular profession or occupation to the children, but to develop the full man through teaching that occupation”1 . The most essential feature of Gandhiji’s philosophy of education instead of taking handicrafts of the school and impose it on the educational curriculum insisted that education must proceed from the handicrafts. Gandhi said, ‘The core of my suggestion is that handcrafts are to be taught not merely for production work but for developing the intellect of the people’. Another important feature of Gandhiji’s philosophy of education is the supporting aspect of the craft chosen as a means of education. All education to be true must be self supporting. Gandhiji also emphasized that the major aim of education should be character development. He wished that the youth generation should develop a sense of courage, strength and virtue.
Aims of education
Gandhiji has mentioned several aim of life keeping in view its different aspects and ideals. These aims can be divided into two classes:
· Immediate Aim
· Ultimate Aim
1. Immediate Aims of Education
· Aim of Livelihood: According to Gandhiji, the aim of education is to enable an individual to earn his livelihood by which he can become self-dependent.
· Perfect Development aim: Gandhiji wrote, “The real education is that which fully develops the body, mind soul of children”
· Cultural Aim: According to Gandhiji, a child should be trained to express his culture in his conduct. He says that culture is the foundation, the initial thing which should be manifested in your abstract behavior
· Moral Aim: Gandhiji has laid more emphasis on morality or character building. He regarded character building as to proper foundation for education.
· Aim of Emancipation: According to Gandhiji, the aim of education is for an individual to attain emancipation. He has used ‘emancipation’ in two sasses-one, freedom from all types of slavery in the present life, and two, the second sense of emancipation is salvation of an individual from worldly binding and take forward the spirit towards a higher life, so an aim of education is to guide an individual for spiritual freedom to take him forward to his goal.
2. Ultimate Aims of Education
· Self-Realisation: Self-realisation and spiritual development find perfect support in Gandhian scheme of education. Education should provide spiritual freedom. Development of the moral character, development of the whole, all are directed towards the realization of the ultimate reality, the merger of the finite being into the infinite.
· Perfect Synthesis between individual and social aim: Gandhiji had laid equal emphasis on individual and social aims of education at different times. He did not find any conflict between the two. According to him if the individuals are good, the society is bound to be good.
Principles of Gandhi’s educational philosophy
· “Literacy is Not Education: According to Gandhiji’s literacy is not education. Education is the all-around development of child.
· Development of all Human Qualities: education should develop all human qualities inherent are a child.
· Harmonious Development of Personality: Education should effect harmonious development of a child’s body, heart, mind and soul.
· Development of all Faculties: Education should develop all faculties of a child according to the general well-being of the community of which he is a member.
· Beneficial Handicraft as the Beginning of Education: A child’s education should begin from a beneficial handicraft or skill by which he can meet the economic needs of his future life.
· Education is related to Real Life: A child’s education should be related to his real circumstances and physical environment.
· Self-dependent Education: Education should make a person self-dependent. The industry of handicraft chosen as the medium of education should make a person self-dependent.”
· Active Education: A child should get his education actively and he should use it to understand his social environment and have better control over it.
EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE
The great poet Tagore is well known as Gurudev. From his childhood itself he had manifested all the signs of a great personality in the making. In this philosophy there is the sum total of the four fundamental philosophies of naturalism, humanism, internationalism and idealism. His philosophy is a depiction of fulfillment through a harmony with all things. There was no special treatise of his on education save a few. Hence his ideas of education are manifested through his literary creation-be it poetry, drama, novels, short stories, essays or letters. As Tagore found the education of his times inadequate, he wished that education should facilitate an individual’s all around development and result in the perfection of the individual and society at large.
As an Idealist: He believed that the man should live for the ultimate truth which liberates us from from cycle of birth and death had faith in absolute values.
As a Spiritualist: He believed that every individual should try to attain spiritual perfection.
As a Humanist: He preached human brotherhood, having faith in fundamental unity of mankind. He remarked that ”even God depends upon man for perfecting his Universe.”
As a Naturalist: He considered nature as a great teacher God revealed himself through various forms, colors and rhythm of nature.
Tagore’s Internationalism: He was an ardent prophet of world unity. ¨ He believed in world brotherhood.
The three cardinal principles of Tagore’s educational philosophy are:
· Freedom
· Active communication with Nature and man
· Creative self-expression.
Tagore felt that education divorced from the streams of life and confined within four walls becomes artificial and loses its value. Tagore believed in self-imposed discipline which is not imposed from outside but drawn out from within.
Tagore attached great significance to the moral values and ethics in education. Accepting the intellect of the people of West, it would be a great degrading to forget our moral wealth of wisdom. Stressing on the importance of mother-tongue, Tagore considered that foreign language makes the learner alienated and lifeless from the living world of freedom and joy. So, education should be intervened with life and society. According to him, there are three sources of knowledge: Nature, life and teacher. There should be a close coordination and harmony among these sources.
Educational Aims as propounded by Rabindranath Tagore:-
· Education should aim to develop the child physically. Tagore believed that a healthy mind lives in a healthy body.
· Education should enable the child to acquire the knowledge through independent efforts and critical examination of ideas.
· Education should inculcate moral and spiritual values in children.
· Chief aim of education should be drawing out all the latent potentialities of child.
· Education should create self-discipline among teachers as well as children.
· Education should aim at the attainment of inner freedom, inner power and enlightenment.
· Education should not only train children to be effective farmers, clerks or craftsmen, but also develop them to be complete human beings.
· Education should aim at development of a sense of social service in pupils and teachers.
EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF J.KRISHNAMURTI
J. Krishnamurti was undoubtedly one of the greatest philosophical minds of twentieth century. His adult life was spent giving passionate discourses on the myriad ways the human mind turns to self delusion in its never ending search for psychological fulfillment. J.Krishnamurti is not a teacher in the conventional sense who indoctrinates his ideology or gives a ‘mantram’ like the gurus but he is a teacher with a difference-who wants to ‘awaken the sleeping psyche of man’ so that one can see things for oneself, shorn off of all conditionings of mind, all ideologies, religious dogmas, superstitions, beliefs and philosophies.
J. Krishnamurti was dissatisfied with the present system of education as well as the quality of education imparted through it. He finds holistic approach of education as against our educational system where only certain faculties of mind are emphasized and the rest of the aspects of man are neglected. This creates fragmentation of knowledge in the mind of man which creates conflicts and confusions in return. Education for Krishnamurti is not a matter of accumulating information and knowledge from books. Education in the true sense is the understanding of one’s self. The real function of education therefore is to prepare the young generation for a new type of free living. Education must help them in facing the world in a totally different and intelligent way knowing to earn a livelihood, knowing all the responsibilities and miseries of all.
Educational Aims of J. Krishnamurthy’s philosophy
· Education should aim at establishing a good society which is without violence and contradictions of various beliefs.
· Education should aim at peace and harmony in society.
· Education should lead to complete development of body, mind and heart of pupils.
· Education should aim at aesthetic development of the pupils.
· Education should aim at developing a child in a manner that he can do his work independently.
· Education should lead to self knowledge which means understanding by his own efforts.
· Education should aim at development of critical thinking in teachers and pupils.
· Education should awaken the intelligence of pupils so that they can think objectively.
· Education should aim at inculcating love for knowledge which is without conflicts and confusions.
· Education should aim at bringing proper balance between inner and outer world of knowledge. Inner world includes opinions, fears, miseries and confusions and outer world includes knowledge, technology and computers etc.
1.4 Agencies of Education: School, family, community and media
Education not only shapes the behaviour of the individuals but also helps in transformation of rich cultural heritage to the rising generation. Therefore, society establishes and develops institutions for achieving the modification of behaviour and passing on cultural heritage to the successive generation.
These institutions are called “Sources” or “Agencies of Education”. More precisely, society has created a number of specialized institutions to carry out these functions of education. These institutions are known as “Agencies of Education“. Sources through which the child directly or indirectly receives education-formal and informal-are called agencies of education.
Classification of Agencies of Education:
Agencies of Education are broadly divided into two categories, viz. formal and Informal Agencies.
Formal agencies are those institutions and organizations which are set up by the society deliberately with the exclusive aim imparting definite and ready-made tidbits of knowledge in a specified time under a structured environment.
There are well-defined aims and objectives, specific curriculum, definite teachers and students, definite and fixed time and place in such agencies. In short, everything or every aspects of education are pre-planned or planned in advance. Such agencies include school, college, university, library, religious institution, the recreation club, the museum, picture and art galleries, zoo, etc.
Informal agencies are those institutions which exercise a great educative influence upon the individuals indirectly and ceaselessly throughout their life. They are called indirect agencies influencing the behaviour of the individuals. Education is provided to the individuals informally and unconsciously. These agencies lack all formalities, rules, systematization, pre-planning, premeditation or training.
There are not particular places or location for imparting education. Individuals learn incidentally and naturally by their own initiatives and efforts. Among the agencies of informal education are family, community, state, social gathering, play-ground, associations, religious ceremonies, crowds, market places, cinema house, news-paper, fairs, exhibitions, radio, television, public meeting, field trip etc.
Those agencies which provide for education through the interaction of the persons are called active agencies of education. The interaction is a two-way process. Both the educator and the educand or the individual and the group influence and react to each other.
The agency is called active because both the agency and the individual actively participate and share in the educative process. Examples of such agencies are the family, the school, the church, the youth activity groups, associations, social welfare agencies, sports club, museum, art galleries, entertainment programmes, etc.
Passive agencies are those agencies which potentially influence the individual but are not influenced at all by the individual. The interaction is one-way traffic. Such agencies are called passive, for the individual plays passive role as he is not able to influence the agencies. Examples of such agencies are library, press, cinema, newspaper, radio, television, theatre, magazine, etc.
The child’s first world is that of his family. It is a world in itself, in which the child learns to live, to move and to have his being. Within it, not only the biological tasks of birth, protection and feeding take place, but also develop those first and intimate associations with persons of different ages and sexes which form the basis of the child’s personality development.
The family is the primary agency of socialisation. It is here that the child develops an initial sense of self and habit-training—eating, sleeping etc. To a very large extent, the indoctrination of the child, whether in primitive or modem complex society, occurs within the circle of the primary family group. The child’s first human relationships are with the immediate members of his family—mother or nurse, siblings, father and other close relatives.
After family the educational institutions take over the charge of socialisation. In some societies (simple non-literate societies), socialisation takes place almost entirely within the family but in highly complex societies children are also socialised by the educational system. Schools not only teach reading, writing and other basic skills, they also teach students to develop themselves, to discipline themselves, to cooperate with others, to obey rules and to test their achievements through competition.
Schools teach sets of expectations about the work, profession or occupations they will follow when they mature. Schools have the formal responsibility of imparting knowledge in those disciplines which are most central to adult functioning in our society. It has been said that learning at home is on a personal, emotional level, whereas learning at school is basically intellectual.
From early forms of print technology to electronic communication (radio, TV, etc.), the media is playing a central role in shaping the personality of the individuals. Since the last century, technological innovations such as radio, motion pictures, recorded music and television have become important agents of socialisation.
Television, in particular, is a critical force in the socialisation of children almost all over the new world. According to a study conducted in America, the average young person (between the ages of 6 and 18) spends more time watching the ‘tube’ (15,000 to 16,000 hours) than studying in school. Apart from sleeping, watching television is the most time-consuming activity of young people.
The Community:
Another crucial agency of education is the community. It offers definite environments that supply the learner’s personal experiences which the school taps. The socio psychology experience involving the community go a long way in determining the learner’s educational attainments. Yet. These educational values of the community can be said to be intrinsic.
The extrinsic role of the community in educational development is not less significant unless a ;community ,offers the needed land a proprietor may find it very difficult to establish school. Even after marking the land available the community ,works with the school to endure the lather’s progress, development and growth, many communities, like progress, development, and missionaries, really established their own schools before government grant-aided the schools. Despite the grantaiding communities continue to provide funds and facilities to the schools and monitor the teaching learning process in their own ways.
1.5 Constitutional provision on education that reflect National Ideals: Equality, Liberty, Secularism, and Social Justice
Our Constitution is not just a mere set of fundamental laws that form the basis of governance of our country but it embodies and reflects certain basic values, philosophy and objectives that were held very dear to our founding fathers. These values do find expression in various articles and provisions of our Constitution and mostly, the Preamble to our Constitution embodies µthe fundamental values and the philosophy on which the Constitution is based
Secularism: India is a home to almost all major religions in the world. To keep the followers of all these religions together secularism has been found to be a convenient formula. The ideal of secularism in Indian context implies that our country is not guided by any religion or any religious considerations. However, our polity is not against religions. It allows all its citizens to profess, preach and practice any religion of their liking. Articles from 25 to 28 ensure freedom of religion to all its citizens. Constitution strictly prohibits any discrimination on the ground of religion. All minority communities are granted the right to conserve their distinctive culture and the right to administer their educational institutions.
Social Justice: Constitution knew that political freedom would not automatically solve the socio-economic problems which have been deep rooted. Therefore, they stressed that the positive constructive aspect of political freedom has to be instrumental in the creation of a new social order, based on the doctrine of socio-economic justice. The message of socio-economic justice mentioned in the preamble to our Constitution has been translated into several articles enshrined in part-III and part- IV of the Constitution.
Our constitution abolishes untouchability; prohibits exploitation of the women, children and the weak and advocates for reservation to raise the standard of the people oppressed over ages.
Liberty: The blessings of freedom have been preserved and ensured to our citizens through a set of Fundamental Rights. It was well understood by the fathers of our Constitution that the ideal of democracy was unattainable without the presence of certain minimal rights which are essential for a free and civilized existence. Therefore, the Preamble mentions these essential individual rights such as freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship which are assured to every member of the community against all the authorities of States by Part-III of the Constitution. There are however less number of success stories. Unless all dissenting voice is heard and tolerated and their problems are addressed liberty will be a distant dream.
Equality: Every citizen of India is entitled to equality before law and equal protection of law. As a human being everybody has a dignified self. To ensure its full enjoyment inequality in all forms present in our social structure has been prohibited. Our Constitution assures equality of status and opportunity to every citizen for the development of the best in him. Political equality though given in terms of vote but it is not found in all spheres of politics and power. µEquality before law in order to be effective requires some economic and education base or grounding. Equality substantiates democracy and justice. It is therefore held as an important value.