BharatNotes Why this chapter matters for UPSC: The Preamble promises "JUSTICE, social, economic and political", and the Directive Principles spell out what that means for policy. This chapter gives the reasoning behind them: what it means to give each person his or her due, the three principles of justice that governments must balance, John Rawls's argument from the veil of ignorance, and the debate between free markets and state provision of a basic minimum. Mains GS4 has asked candidates to analyse Rawls's concept of social justice in the Indian context. The chapter is unchanged in the Reprint 2026-27. NCERT does not state Rawls's two principles; this page adds them from Rawls's own text, with two well-known critics, and updates NCERT's example of a "proposal" to reserve seats for women, which is now a constitutional amendment.
🧠 First Principles — Read This First
Justice concerns how social goods and duties are shared. NCERT compares justice to love: we understand it intuitively without a precise definition, it stirs passion, and nobody hates it. Unlike love, it concerns our life in society: the way public life is ordered and the principles by which social goods and social duties are distributed. That makes it central to politics.
"Giving each person his due" has changed meaning. For Plato a just ruler, like a doctor caring for patients, looks to the well-being of all and gives each person his due. Today what is due to a person is linked to what is due to every human being: for Kant, human beings possess dignity, so each is due the opportunity to develop his or her talents and pursue chosen goals.
Three principles that pull in different directions. Equal treatment for equals, reward in proportion to effort and skill, and attention to special needs are each fair, but pursuing one alone can work against the others. Governments must harmonise them. Rawls offers a way to choose fair rules without relying on anyone's goodwill: imagine choosing behind a veil of ignorance about your own position.
PART 1 — Quick Reference
The Chapter at a Glance
| NCERT section | Core idea |
|---|---|
| 4.1 What is justice? | Dharma, Confucius, Plato; giving each his due; Kant's dignity; three principles of justice |
| 4.2 Just distribution | Social justice needs fair laws and also the redistribution of important resources |
| 4.3 John Rawls' theory of justice | The veil of ignorance: rational self-interest, reasoning from the position of the worst-off |
| 4.4 Pursuing social justice | Basic minimum conditions; free markets versus state intervention |
NCERT's Three Principles of Justice
| Principle | Meaning | NCERT's examples |
|---|---|---|
| Equal treatment for equals | People share characteristics as humans and deserve equal rights (civil, political, social) and no discrimination by class, caste, race or gender | Two people breaking stones or delivering pizzas get the same pay whatever their caste; a male and a female teacher get the same salary |
| Proportionate justice | Starting from equal rights, reward in proportion to the scale and quality of effort, skill, danger and similar factors | Exam marks by the quality of answers, not equal marks for all; miners, skilled craftsmen and police may not be paid what their work deserves |
| Recognition of special needs | People unequal in important respects may need special help; this extends equal treatment rather than contradicting it | Disability, age, lack of access to education or health care; reservations for SCs and STs because deprivation combines with caste discrimination |
Rawls in NCERT and in Rawls
| What it says | Source | |
|---|---|---|
| Veil of ignorance | Choose the rules of society without knowing your family, caste, wealth or privilege; you will then reason from the position of the worst-off | NCERT 4.3 |
| Basis | "Rational thinking, not morality": fairness as the outcome of rational action, "not benevolence or generosity" | NCERT 4.3 |
| First principle | Each person has an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system for all | Rawls, A Theory of Justice |
| Second principle | Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both "(a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity" | Rawls, A Theory of Justice, §46 |
PART 2 — Concepts & Narrative
What Is Justice?
Every culture has grappled with justice. In ancient India justice was associated with dharma, and maintaining dharma, a just social order, was a primary duty of kings. In China, Confucius argued that kings should maintain justice by punishing wrongdoers and rewarding the virtuous. In fourth-century BCE Athens, Plato examined in The Republic, through a long dialogue between Socrates and his young friends Glaucon and Adeimantus, why we should be just at all. The young men observe that the unjust (those who twist rules, avoid taxes, lie and deceive) often do better than the just; if you are smart enough not to be caught, injustice seems to pay. NCERT quotes Glaucon (Book II): men "think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither" doing nor suffering injustice; "hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just."
Socrates replies that if everyone manipulated the rules, nobody could be sure of benefiting from injustice; nobody would be secure, so obeying the laws and being just is in our own long-term interest. Justice is not only doing good to friends and harm to enemies, or pursuing one's own interests: like a doctor concerned with patients' well-being, a just ruler is concerned with the well-being of all, which includes giving each person his due.
That idea survives, but what is "due" has changed. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant held that human beings possess dignity; if all persons have dignity, what is due to each is the opportunity to develop their talents and pursue their chosen goals. Justice requires "due and equal consideration to all individuals."
The three principles. Deciding how to give each person his due is not simple. NCERT sets out three principles:
- Equal treatment for equals. All individuals share certain characteristics as human beings and so deserve equal rights: civil rights (life, liberty, property), political rights (the vote) and some social rights (equal opportunity). Nobody should be discriminated against by class, caste, race or gender; people should be judged by their work and actions, not their group. If one person gets a hundred rupees and another seventy-five for the same work because of caste, that is unjust; so is paying a male teacher more than a female teacher.
- Proportionate justice. Treating everybody equally can itself be unjust: equal marks for every student who sat the same exam would be unfair. Provided everybody starts from equal rights, justice can mean rewarding people in proportion to the scale and quality of their effort, the skills required, the dangers involved and so on. By these criteria miners, skilled craftsmen and police may not be justly rewarded compared with others. Equal treatment must be balanced with proportionality.
- Recognition of special needs. Non-discrimination and proportionate reward may still leave people unequal in other aspects of life. People with special needs or disabilities may deserve special help, though agreeing which inequalities qualify is not easy: physical disability, age, and lack of access to good education or health care are common grounds. In India, lack of access to education and health care is often combined with caste discrimination, which is why the Constitution allowed reservations in government jobs and quotas in educational institutions for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. This principle extends equal treatment rather than contradicting it, because treating equals equally implies that people unequal in important respects may be treated differently.
NCERT's Let's Think: which principle applies? Discuss whether each is just and which principle defends it:
- Suresh, a visually impaired student, gets three and a half hours for a mathematics paper while the class gets three (special needs).
- Geeta, who walks with a limp, is also given three and a half hours (is a limp a need that affects writing a paper?).
- A teacher gives grace marks to weaker students to boost morale (equal treatment and proportionate justice are both strained).
- A professor sets different papers for different students according to her view of their capabilities (equal treatment is at stake).
- "A proposal to reserve 33 per cent of the seats in the Parliament for women." This is no longer a proposal. The Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023 inserted Articles 330A, 332A and 334A: "as nearly as may be, one-third" of directly elected seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies (including one-third of the SC and ST seats) are reserved for women. The Act passed the Lok Sabha on 20 September 2023 (454-2) and the Rajya Sabha on 21 September 2023, received assent on 28 September 2023 and was brought into force on 16 April 2026 (S.O. 1922(E)). Under Article 334A the reservation takes effect only after delimitation based on the first census taken after commencement, and lasts fifteen years.
NCERT's cartoon of the blindfolded statue of justice asks the same question: she must be impartial, but how then does she see people's special needs?
Different groups favour different principles. Pursuing equal treatment alone can work against rewarding merit; emphasising merit alone can disadvantage marginalised sections who lacked nourishment or education. Harmonising the principles is a function of government.
Just Distribution
Social justice needs more than laws and policies that treat individuals fairly. It concerns the just distribution of goods and services, between nations and between groups and individuals within a society. Where there are serious economic or social inequalities, it may be necessary to redistribute important resources to provide "something like a level playing field". In India the Constitution abolished untouchability to promote social equality and give "lower" castes access to temples, jobs and basic necessities like water, and State governments carried out land reforms to redistribute land more fairly. Proposals to reserve seats in education or government jobs have aroused anger and even violence, because people feel their families' futures are at stake. Political theory asks us to examine such issues calmly: can schemes to help the disadvantaged be justified by a theory of justice? Rawls argues they can.
John Rawls's Theory of Justice
If asked to choose the kind of society they would live in, people tend to choose one that gives them a privileged position, and parents think of their children's future. Such perspectives cannot found a theory of justice. Rawls's answer is to imagine deciding how society should be organised without knowing which position we will occupy in it: what family we will be born into, "upper" or "lower" caste, rich or poor, privileged or disadvantaged. He calls this thinking under a "veil of ignorance".
NCERT's reading of the argument:
- Under the veil, each person still decides in terms of his or her own interests. But since nobody knows who they will be, each will view the future society from the point of view of the worst-off. A rational person will want rules that give reasonable opportunities to the weaker sections, so that education, health and shelter are available to all, not only the upper class.
- The veil does not demand heroism. Self-sacrifice is rare, which is why we associate it with heroes; the veil asks people only to be "their usual rational selves".
- Rational choosers will also make sure their policies benefit society as a whole and do not weaken the better-off, because they might be born privileged too. Fairness is "the outcome of rational action, not benevolence or generosity".
- So "rational thinking, not morality, could lead us to be fair". No goals or norms of morality are given in advance, which is what makes the theory compelling.
Rawls's two principles (from A Theory of Justice, not in NCERT). Rawls's book was published by Harvard University Press in 1971 (revised edition 1999). It opens: "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought." The parties in the original position, choosing behind the veil, would agree on two principles. The first gives each person an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all. The second reads: "Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity." Part (a) is the difference principle: inequality is permitted only if it improves the position of the least advantaged. Rawls also ranks the first principle ahead of the second (the "priority of liberty"). He called his theory "justice as fairness".
Two critics UPSC answers often cite (not in NCERT). Robert Nozick (1938-2002), in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), argued against Rawls that justice in holdings is historical: a distribution is just if it arose through just acquisition and just transfer, and past injustices are to be rectified. He did not reject rectification; he closed the relevant chapter with thoughts on how it might be done, including rough payments to classes of people made worse off by historical injustice. What he rejected was redistribution to fit a preferred pattern (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Robert Nozick's Political Philosophy"). Amartya Sen's capability approach judges well-being by capabilities, what people are able to do and be (being well-nourished, educated, able to travel), and the functionings they achieve, not by income or resources alone. Sen has consistently refused to defend "one pre-determined canonical list of capabilities"; the well-known list of ten central capabilities is Martha Nussbaum's (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "The Capability Approach").
Pursuing Social Justice
A society lacks social justice where deep, persistent divisions separate those with wealth, property and the power that goes with them from the excluded and deprived. Justice does not require absolute equality of living standards. But a society is unjust if rich and poor seem to live in different worlds and the deprived have no chance to improve their condition however hard they work. A just society should give people basic minimum conditions to live healthy and secure lives and develop their talents, and equal opportunities to pursue their goals.
How to decide the basic minimum? Governments and international organisations such as the World Health Organisation have devised methods, but there is general agreement that the nourishment needed to stay healthy, housing, clean drinking water, education and a minimum wage are central. Providing them is a responsibility of democratic government, and a heavy burden in a country with many poor people. In Indian law today, parts of this minimum are rights or entitlements: free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen (Article 21A); free foodgrains for 81.35 crore people for five years from 1 January 2024 (Union Cabinet, 29 November 2023); 125 days of guaranteed wage employment for rural households under the Viksit Bharat - Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025, in force from 1 July 2026, which repealed MGNREGA on that date; and the four Labour Codes, in force from 21 November 2025, which include the Code on Wages.
Free markets versus state intervention. Even those who agree that the state should help the most disadvantaged disagree on how.
- The case for free markets. Individuals should be free to own property and make contracts on prices, wages and profits, and to compete. Left free of state interference, market transactions would produce a just distribution: the talented rewarded, the incompetent less so, and whatever the market yields is just. Most free-market supporters today accept some regulation: the state may ensure a basic minimum so that people can compete on equal terms, but even then the efficient way may be to let markets in health care and education develop and have the state empower people to buy those services, with special help for the old and sick. The market "does not care about the caste or religion of the person"; if you have merit, nothing else matters. It also gives consumers more choice.
- The case for state intervention. Choice matters only if you can pay. For basic goods what matters is good quality at an affordable cost. If private agencies find it unprofitable, they stay away or provide cheap, substandard services, which is why there are few good private schools in remote villages; the same holds for health care and housing. Private services may be better, but their cost puts them out of reach of the poor. Private business goes where profit is greatest, so free markets "tend to work in the interest of the strong, the wealthy and the powerful", denying opportunity to the weak.
NCERT's conclusion: arguments exist on both sides, but free markets often favour the already privileged, so many argue that the state should ensure basic facilities for all. Disagreement over distribution is inevitable and healthy in a democracy; politics is the negotiation of such disagreements through debate.
NCERT's two epigraphs. NCERT prints, attributed to B.R. Ambedkar: "A Just society is that society in which ascending sense of reverence and descending sense of contempt is dissolved into the creation of a compassionate society." It reverses the diagnosis of caste that Ambedkar gave at the First Round Table Conference on 20 November 1930: "Indian Society is a gradation of Castes forming an ascending scale of reverence and a descending scale of contempt—a system which gives no scope for the growth of that sentiment of equality and fraternity so essential for a democratic form of government". And J.S. Mill, from Utilitarianism, chapter 5: "Justice implies something which it is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as his moral right." Mill uses this to separate justice from generosity or beneficence: nobody has a moral right to our generosity.
Social Justice in the Constitution
The Directive Principles turn the chapter's ideas into goals for the state (beyond NCERT's chapter; text from the Constitution as on 11 November 2025):
| Article | What it directs | Principle it reflects |
|---|---|---|
| Art. 38(1) | Promote the welfare of the people by securing a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all institutions of national life | Social justice as a whole |
| Art. 38(2) | "Minimise the inequalities in income, and endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities" | Just distribution |
| Art. 39(a)-(c) | Adequate means of livelihood for all citizens, men and women equally; distribution of ownership and control of material resources to subserve the common good; prevent concentration of wealth to the common detriment | Basic minimum; just distribution |
| Art. 39(d) | Equal pay for equal work for both men and women | Equal treatment for equals |
| Art. 39A | Equal justice and free legal aid (inserted by the 42nd Amendment Act, 1976, w.e.f. 3 January 1977) | Equal treatment; special needs |
| Art. 41 | Right to work, to education and to public assistance in unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, within the limits of economic capacity | Special needs; basic minimum |
| Art. 46 | Promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections, in particular the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes | Special needs |
How far may laws for these goals override Fundamental Rights? Article 31C, inserted by the 25th Amendment Act, 1971, protects laws giving effect to the principles in Article 39(b) and (c) from challenge under Articles 14 and 19. The 42nd Amendment Act, 1976 widened it to all the Directive Principles, but the Supreme Court struck that widening down in Minerva Mills v. Union of India (1980); the printed Constitution still carries the struck-down words with a footnote recording that the 42nd Amendment's section 4 "has been declared invalid".
PART 3 — UPSC Integration
Cross-paper relevance
- GS2: the Preamble's justice; Directive Principles (Arts. 38, 39, 39A, 41, 46) and Article 31C; welfare schemes for vulnerable sections; reservation; women's reservation (106th Amendment).
- GS4: Rawls's veil of ignorance as a test of impartial decision-making; justice versus charity (Mill); fairness and justice in the civil service.
- GS1/GS3: affirmative action and its reach; food security and employment guarantees as the basic minimum; markets versus the state in health and education.
- Essay: "Is a free market a just market?", "Justice is not charity", "Behind the veil of ignorance".
Applying the Chapter
| Question theme | What to use |
|---|---|
| Rawls's social justice in the Indian context | Veil of ignorance; reasoning from the worst-off; difference principle and Art. 38(2), 46; reservation as recognition of special needs |
| Why benefits miss the underprivileged | NCERT's three principles in tension; free markets favour the privileged; basic minimum as a state duty |
| What is just changes with context | "Giving each his due" from Plato to Kant; the 33 per cent proposal that became the 106th Amendment |
| Should health and education be left to markets? | NCERT's two cases; the remote-village school example |
| Justice versus charity | Mill's moral-right test; NCERT's exercise 6(a) and (d) |
Exam Strategy
For Prelims: know NCERT's three principles by name and example; "giving each his due" (Plato) and dignity (Kant); the veil of ignorance and NCERT's claim that Rawls relies on rational self-interest, not morality; Rawls's second principle in his own order ((a) least advantaged, (b) fair equality of opportunity); Nozick's historical entitlement with rectification; Sen's capabilities versus Nussbaum's list; Articles 38(2), 39, 39A (42nd Amendment) and 31C (25th Amendment, 1971); the 106th Amendment's dates.
For Mains: NCERT's six exercises ask how "giving each his due" has changed, the three principles with examples, whether special needs conflict with equal treatment, how Rawls uses the veil to defend fair distribution on rational grounds, what the basic minimum is and the government's responsibility for it, and which arguments justify state provision of a basic minimum (charity, equality of opportunity, laziness, shared humanity and human rights).
Avoid: listing "fairness" as one of NCERT's three principles (the three are equal treatment, proportionate justice and special needs); saying Rawls appeals to altruism; giving Nozick two principles or saying he ignored past injustice; crediting the ten capabilities to Sen; dating Article 31C to 1976.
Practice Questions
Practice (UPSC-pattern, not past papers). Mains items 1 to 4 are NCERT's own exercises.
Prelims:
Which of the following is NOT one of the three principles of justice set out in NCERT's chapter?
(a) Equal treatment for equals (b) Proportionate justice
(c) Recognition of special needs (d) Utility maximisationAccording to NCERT, Rawls argues that people choosing under a "veil of ignorance" would favour fair rules because:
(a) they are naturally altruistic
(b) rational self-interest leads them to reason from the position of the worst-off
(c) religion teaches them to share
(d) the state compels them toIn Rawls's statement of the second principle, social and economic inequalities must be:
- to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.
- attached to offices and positions open to all under fair equality of opportunity.
- approved by a majority in a referendum.
Select the correct answer:
(a) 1 only (b) 1 and 2 only (c) 2 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3
- to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.
Article 31C, protecting laws that give effect to Article 39(b) and (c), was first inserted by the:
(a) First Amendment Act, 1951 (b) 25th Amendment Act, 1971
(c) 42nd Amendment Act, 1976 (d) 44th Amendment Act, 1978Under Article 334A, the reservation of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies:
(a) took effect from the 2024 general election
(b) takes effect after delimitation based on the first census taken after the 106th Amendment's commencement
(c) applies only to Rajya Sabha
(d) is permanentThe list of ten "central human capabilities" is associated with:
(a) Amartya Sen (b) Martha Nussbaum (c) John Rawls (d) Robert Nozick
Answers: 1 (d); 2 (b); 3 (b); 4 (b); 5 (b); 6 (b).
Mains:
- What does it mean to give each person his or her due? How has its meaning changed over time? (NCERT)
- Briefly discuss the three principles of justice outlined in the chapter, with examples. (NCERT)
- Does the principle of considering special needs conflict with the principle of equal treatment for all? (NCERT)
- How does Rawls use the veil of ignorance to argue that fair and just distribution can be defended on rational grounds? (NCERT)
- "Free markets often exhibit a tendency to work in favour of the already privileged." Examine with reference to health care and school education in India. (250 words)
- Analyse the relevance of Rawls's difference principle to India's Directive Principles of State Policy. (150 words)
📦 Revision Capsule
Hard Facts
- Justice: dharma (ancient India); Confucius (punish wrongdoers, reward the virtuous); Plato, Republic (Glaucon and Adeimantus); "giving each his due"; Kant: dignity
- Three principles: equal treatment for equals; proportionate justice; recognition of special needs
- Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971): veil of ignorance; two principles; difference principle = (a) of the second
- Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974): historical entitlement, with rectification
- Art. 31C: 25th Amendment 1971; 42nd Amendment's widening struck down (Minerva Mills, 1980); Art. 39A: 42nd Amendment (w.e.f. 3-1-1977)
- 106th Amendment: Arts. 330A, 332A, 334A; assent 28-9-2023; in force 16-4-2026; effective after post-census delimitation, for 15 years
- Basic minimum today: Art. 21A; free grains to 81.35 crore from 1-1-2024; VB-G RAM G Act (125 days) from 1-7-2026; Labour Codes from 21-11-2025
Core Concepts
- Justice distributes social goods and duties; it differs from love and from charity (Mill)
- The three principles must be harmonised by government
- Rawls: rational self-interest, not morality, yields fairness
- A just society guarantees a basic minimum and equal opportunity, not absolute equality
- Free markets offer choice and efficiency but tend to favour the privileged
Confused Pairs
- Equal treatment vs proportionate justice vs special needs
- Veil of ignorance (the device) vs difference principle (one rule it yields)
- Rawls (patterned, worst-off) vs Nozick (historical entitlement)
- Sen (no fixed list) vs Nussbaum (ten central capabilities)
- Art. 31C as inserted (25th, 1971) vs as widened (42nd, 1976, struck down)
PYQ Pattern
- Mains GS4 has asked candidates to analyse Rawls's concept of social justice in the Indian context, and to reflect on how what is just changes with context; GS1 has asked why the underprivileged still miss the benefits of policies for equity and social justice. All three draw on this chapter.
Sources
- NCERT, Political Theory (Class XI), ch. 4 "Social Justice", Reprint 2026-27: ncert.nic.in PDF; pre-2022 text in the book archive, Wayback copy of October 2021.
- Plato, The Republic, Book II, trans. Benjamin Jowett: Project Gutenberg ebook 1497.
- John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, 1971; revised edition 1999 (Belknap Press), §1 and §46 (statement of the two principles).
- J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, chapter 5: Project Gutenberg ebook 11224.
- B.R. Ambedkar, speech at the First Round Table Conference, 20 November 1930, in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, vol. 2 (Dr. Ambedkar Foundation, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment): archive.org.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Robert Nozick's Political Philosophy; The Capability Approach.
- The Constitution of India, as on 11 November 2025 (Preamble; Arts. 21A, 31C, 38, 39, 39A, 41, 46, 330A, 332A, 334A and footnotes): Legislative Department PDF.
- Constitution (106th Amendment) Act brought into force, S.O. 1922(E), 16 April 2026: Gazette of India (eGazette ID 271834).
- Free foodgrains for five years from 1 January 2024 (Union Cabinet, 29 November 2023): PIB.
- Labour Codes effective from 21 November 2025: PIB.
