UPSC Prelims 2017 · Question 63 of 99
UPSC Prelims 2017 question on Preamble Liberty Thought Expression Belief
Which one of the following objectives is not embodied in the Preamble to the Constitution of India?
Show answer
Answer: B. Economic liberty
Verdict
The answer is economic liberty. The Preamble secures liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, but not economic liberty.
Analysis
The Preamble's liberty clause lists precisely five objects: thought, expression, belief, faith and worship. Options one, three and four each name one of these, so all three are embodied in the Preamble. Economic liberty is not among them, and the Preamble instead addresses the economic dimension through the words justice, social, economic and political, and through equality of status and opportunity. The ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity themselves were drawn from the French Revolution.
Source
M. Laxmikanth, Indian Polity, chapter on the Preamble.
How to crack it
The Preamble is short enough to memorise verbatim and it repays doing so, because UPSC asks it repeatedly and always at the level of exact wording. Fix the three lists in it: justice as social, economic and political; liberty as thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; and equality as of status and of opportunity. Once those lists are exact, every Preamble question reduces to checking membership.