India needs an urgent debate on economic rights

Essential rights like affordable food, healthcare, education, employment, and old-age pension are needed to reduce inequality.

While India’s economy ranks fifth in the world based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a stark reality lies behind this growth: extreme levels of inequality. While a microscopic minority has burgeoned, the vast majority has been pauperised. 

On one hand, billionaires display obscene wealth, spending thousands of crores on extravagant weddings. On the other hand, a staggering 24 crore people in the country suffer from undernourishment.

According to the SOFI-2023 report, India ranks 111 in the Global Hunger Index. Another report by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister reveals that more than 90% of the population earns less than Rs 25,000 a month. In terms of job creation, the picture is bleak: the share of educated youths among all unemployed people has increased from 54.2% in 2000 to 65.7% in 2022. What is more worrying is that there has been no significant growth in real wages in India since 2014, according to the celebrated developmental economist Jean Dreze. 

Under such circumstances, it is crucial to institute certain fundamental, universal economic rights to ensure the well-being of people. Indian Marxian economist and political commentator Prabhat Patnaik and developmental economist Jayati Ghosh propose the institution of five such rights that can be safely established: the right to affordable food; the right to employment or a living wage in the absence of employment; the right to free, universal, and quality healthcare; the right to free and quality education; and the right to old-age pension and disability benefits.

In the constitutions of most democratic nations, a set of fundamental political rights is generally recognised and enshrined. However, this is not extended to include a set of fundamental economic rights. If anything, propositions to institute fundamental economic rights are met with widespread resistance and scepticism from all quarters. It is due to these reservations aired at economic rights that our constitution, too, institutes a set of political and social rights but relegates economic rights to an ancillary position—the Directive Principles of State Policy. 

The Constituent Assembly witnessed an interesting debate on the inclusion of economic rights as justiciable rights. Promata Ranjan Thakur, a prominent member of the Constituent Assembly from Bengal, remarked in the Assembly, “Sir, this is a list of fundamental rights which are only justiciable. I do not understand why economic fundamental rights should not be included in these justiciable rights. Economic rights are essential while framing a country’s constitution, and they must also be made justiciable.”

There are mainly two kinds of reservations against economic rights — liberal and Marxist. The liberal argument holds that since the fulfilment of economic rights is contingent on the capacity of the economic system, the State will not be in a position to guarantee economic rights. Prabhat Patnaik and Jayati Ghosh, however, argue that this argument is deeply flawed since it entails privileging a particular economic system — capitalism — over the demands of democracy. For them, true democracy means that citizens should have basic economic security, which the State is obligated to ensure, not as a privilege or charitable handout, but by the sheer virtue of their being citizens. 

The Marxist perspective, on the other hand, is sceptical of human rights in general. For them, there is a fundamental ‘epistemic’ contradiction between Marxism and the concept of ‘human rights’. The source of this scepticism can be traced to Karl Marx’s early essay On the Jewish Question, where he argues that ‘the rights of man... are nothing but the rights of egotistic man, of man separated from other men and from the community.’ However, Patnaik and Ghosh draw our attention to the fact that Marx himself had been of the opinion that there could be no political activity whatsoever without the freedom of expression and association. 

Thus, the reservations against fundamental economic rights are premised on wrong assumptions. In a democratic setup, it is crucial to emphasise the obligation of the State to provide economic security to the masses. Belgian-born Indian welfare economist, social scientist, and activist, Jean Dreze, says in an interview with journalist Shobha Warrier that ‘democracy can’t flourish until and unless our economy is democratised’. 

Wealth tax and inheritance tax can be two ways for the effective realisation of the five rights mentioned above. They are necessary for mobilising financial resources. Prabhat Patnaik argues a mere 2% tax on the wealth of the top 1% could generate a substantial Rs 6.6 lakh crore annually. This wealth tax should be complemented by a comprehensive inheritance tax. Contrary to popular belief, an inheritance tax is entirely consistent with capitalist ideology, which posits that individuals accumulate wealth due to their exceptional talent and effort. If so, there is no justification for their children to inherit that wealth without displaying similar talents and abilities.

Cass R Sunstein, an American scholar, argues in the context of the American Constitution that “Constitutional change is often a product not of constitutional amendment but of interpretation, leading to new understandings of old provisions. Even if the eighteenth century constitution did not contain social and economic rights, the American constitution might well have been interpreted to do  so.” It is equally true for the Indian Constitution. Being a dynamic document, the Constitution entrusts a responsibility to the State for the well-being of citizens. 

(Shashi Singh is an independent researcher, and Rajesh Ranjan is a lawyer and researcher, who writes on public engagement of the constitution, law, and society)