Individual freedom

The Indian Constitution's commitment to individual freedom did not spring into existence around the drafting table in the late 1940s — it was the outcome of more than a century of continuous intellectual and political activity. As early as the start of the nineteenth century, Rammohan Roy protested against the British colonial state's curtailment of press freedom, arguing that a state genuinely responsive to the needs of individuals must give them the means to communicate those needs, which meant the state had to permit unlimited liberty of publication. Indians kept up this demand for a free press throughout British rule. Given this history, it is unsurprising that freedom of expression became an integral part of the Indian Constitution, alongside freedom from arbitrary arrest — the very freedom the deeply unpopular Rowlatt Act had denied, and which the national movement opposed so fiercely. These freedoms, together with others such as freedom of conscience, are core elements of liberal ideology, and their strong presence gives the Indian Constitution a genuinely liberal character — visible already in the chapter on Fundamental Rights. It is worth remembering that for more than forty years before the Constitution was f …