History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c96.s2.20

v7.c96.s2.20

The Constitution of India has no chapter on the duties of the people to the country or to the people as a whole. Art 19 confers the right to seven freedoms, one of which (c) is to form associations or unions and sub-article (4) enables the State to make laws imposing, *in the interest of public order or morality*, reasonable restrictions. The framers of the Constitution forgot to include what Britain had, provided long before in 17 and 18 Geo 5, Chapter 22, Article 1, part of which runs 'any strike is illegal if it is *designed or calculated* to coerce the Government directly or by inflicting hardship on the community'. The eyes of some of the framers of this constitution were opened by the strike of Government servants in the Railways, Posts and Telegraphs by which, if it had continued for even a fortnight, crores of people would have had to submit to incalculable hardships and the action of the strikers in essential services would have been like a rebellion by some lakhs of people against over forty crores of people. The right to strike by workers tacitly given in the constitution is in imitation of similar rights enjoyed in industrial countries like Britain only for the last few decades and the framers should have restricted the right to strikes between private employers and employees as an experiment in the first instance