Which of the following were to be the objectives of the Constitution as per Jawahar Lal Nehru?

To fuse the liberal ideas of democracy and social ideas of economic justice and readaptation and reworking of liberal ideas of democracy and socialist ideas of economic justice in the Indian context.

The correct answer is Option 3: To fuse the liberal ideas of democracy and social ideas of economic justice and readaptation and reworking of liberal ideas of democracy and socialist ideas of economic justice in the Indian context.

On 13 December 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru introduced the “Objectives Resolution” in the Constituent Assembly. It was a momentous resolution that outlined the defining ideals of the Constitution of Independent India, and provided the framework within which the work of constitution-making was to proceed. It proclaimed India to be an “Independent Sovereign Republic”, guaranteed its citizens justice, equality and freedom, and assured that “adequate safeguards shall be provided for minorities, backward and tribal areas, and Depressed and Other Backward Classes … ”

The system of government established in India, he declared, had to “fit in with the temper of our people and be acceptable to them”. It was necessary to learn from the people of the West, from their achievements and failures, but the Western nations too had to learn from experiments elsewhere, they too had to change their own notions of democracy. The objective of the Indian Constitution would be to fuse the liberal ideas of democracy with the socialist idea of economic justice, and re-adapt and re-work all these ideas within the Indian context. Nehru’s plea was for creative thinking about what was appropriate for India.