For a billion plus Indians, the most populous democracy in the world, something has gone wrong. It is the utter failure of the social contract as envisioned by our founding fathers that has led to the state of the society as we witness it today and there are a lot of unanswered question that need introspection. While the purpose of this series of write ups is to explore the concept of ‘a social contract’ and explore the various forms of political systems under which this social contract can function smoothly, there is a need for a new social contract for a resurgent Indian Republic that can rise to the occasion and while this may amount to reinventing the wheel, some sort of essence of this introspection may contribute in bringing a constructive debate on the implementation of this social contract in the Indian context.

The Indian people, such a refined and tolerant people, are facing enormous challenges in confronting the failure of the instruments that can enforce this social contract in its true spirit, just as the declaration of independence penned by Thomas Jefferson, being such a beautiful document has failed to be the instrument in the hands of the powers to be in the United States for achieving a truly just society. In the Indian context, these concepts like what is a social contract, what is democracy, what are the fundamental rights and responsibilities of a citizen are to be explored in detail before we all come to a conclusion of where the Indian state has failed in providing such basic rights such as right to life and right to the pursuit of happiness to the Indian people. Being helped by Professor Throsby, we shall start our journey by exploring the second treatise on Government penned by the great philosopher John Locke and try to establish the contours of a new social contract espoused then by Jean Jacques Rousseau and other amendments to it as penned by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

However, in our journey, we should not forget since this document is India centric, we should also explore the Indian political thoughts such as by doyens like Babasahib Ambedkar, JP Narayan, Nehru, Vinoba Bhave and above all Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Even since the ancient times, the laws of Manu and the treatises by Chanakya have mesmerized the Indian political thought in determining what is an ideal nation state or a commonwealth and how a balance can be achieved by the people in performing their duties towards the state and their own pursuit of happiness. Of course, there will be distractions like religions and other pursuits of man. However, these dimensions of the life of man are also to be amalgamated in this discourse so that a new social contract derives both strength and support to stand the test of time and change.

To start with John Locke, who wrote the two treatises on Government, that is perhaps a momentous document in the sense that it clearly shows the way how the relationship between the individual and the society is defined and shaped up and how various gives and takes establish a symbiotic relationship between the two. The background for this important document was during the mid-seventeenth century when Charles the first was executed in 1649 which led to a civil war in England. Locke was educated to become a doctor but he was not able to complete his studies, however he went on to become one of the most famous intellectuals of his time. In the year 1683, Locke fled to Holland and during the course of events when Charles II was the monarch in England, the catholic Vatican Church exerted a considerable influence and tried to control the monarch since the Church believed that the Pope had the authority over every Catholic, including the Catholic monarchs, and Locke being a protestant, had to seek refuge in Holland from a hostile Church at the Vatican. It is in this context that in the year 1689 he published his seminal work titled ‘Two treaties on Government’ and then in the same year he returned to London.

Going a bit forward in time, in the year 1776, perhaps taking a cue from Locke, Thomas Jefferson and his associates published the ‘Declaration of Independence’ in Congress on the July the fourth. In this document subtitled as ‘The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America’, the first paragraph is as follows.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The root of this opening paragraph lies in the philosophical framework of John Locke, and digging deeper, we find that Locke’s contributions in the study of Epistemology where he defined the qualities of perception as the primary perception and secondary perception, the former being dependent on the real and physical objects in the world while the latter being subjective that is defined by a quality of an object, for example the font of this text is Bookman Old Style. In addition, the work of Locke in the realm of moral philosophy led to his assertions that God is a rational being and he propounded the divine command theory, and such divine commands were in the form of Natural Theology (natural laws that were moral percepts rationally deduced) and Revealed Theology (eg the ten commandments of Bible). Within such an evolution of his mind, Locke deduced that political philosophy is a byproduct of the natural law. And whenever any law comes into the picture, there is always authority involved that is in this context in the form of a civil authority. Upon such a framework, Locke wrote his seminal work ‘two treatises on Government’ where he gave profound thoughts such as ‘state of nature helps us to understand the government’.

The give and take between the individual and the society is in the form of a social contract that is in the form of a symbiotic relationship between the two entities. Man realizes that for him to have the right to life, property and pursuit of happiness, he has to compromise on his natural freedom, and within the confines of the contract defined above, he enjoys other various freedoms and privileges.