My friend Vishnu shared this thought, we can take some points from it.

In democratic societies it is accepted that people should be treated equally regardless of class, caste, religion, gender, ethnicity or sexuality. But the question of equality should be answered in the context of justice (inter-generational). If there is inequality, it will be in the form of social, economic or political in nature. Any democratic interventions to address these inequalities should understand the problems of 'unequal treatment of equals and equal treatment of unequals'. Whatever individual and collective norms and ways should take into account these dimensions to tackle the issue of inequality.

I got a chance to listen to Michael Sandel at IITB yesterday and I think we can find answers to many of our questions in his courses http://www.justiceharvard.org/ I think can focus on justice instead of equality.

@balasankarchelamat , @suneesh , @arkarjun , @rajudvindane can you folks try and come up with a phrasing that address concerns of @soorajkenoth , and take in idea of Vishu I shared above (https://www.loomio.org/d/GJ2USNR6/constitution-amendment-explain-equality#comment-73170) You can use Michael Salden's website for further ideas. It is going to be a good learning experience for all of us. This is actually how we should be creating any policies - raising and addressing concerns and finding ways to bring all angles into a debate.

@soorajkenoth's thoughts (English translation) https://www.loomio.org/d/GJ2USNR6/constitution-amendment-explain-equality#comment-72832

The right to live in this world is same for everyone. Whether it is Human or any other animal. Nature has given every living being features and capabilities. Many times we are uprooting them from their real surroundings in the name of development.

Because of specific situations a large section cannot go along with it. They are fooled with masks like reservation.

Any category are not denied the opportunity to live because of these changes is what we should ensure.

A native tribe who does not cultivate but roams around jungles are given 10 floor homes in a city cannot live. and vice versa. Likewise a wheelchair is not enough for a disabled person to live like others. A person without an education background given admission in a higher educational institution cannot complete that course.

I am fine with the proposal except the following part "We work towards providing all citizens with a basic and equal minimum of income, goods, and services.”

How do we rate/tell what is the basic and equal income. Would it on the basis of the poverty index or something else ?

Also, if we are not a political party then this part isn't actually needed (for now), because otherwise we would be raising expectations now that we aren't in a place to fulfill.

Just my 2 paise.

@shirish what other goals do you suggest to fix this problem of unequal distribution of resources?

"Once we agree that we need it, we can always find ways to achieve it.

We are not promising to give. It is clearly a statement of an intent. We are saying "we will work towards" and not "we will give this tomorrow".

It is statement of our belief that basic necessities of everyone should be guaranteed by the society.

Even in our freedom struggle when they set a goal of throwing out British rulers from India, people did not expect it to happen in a week, month or a year. Some goals indeed take many generations to fulfil. It doesn't mean we should not work towards those goals." - Praveen

That was his comment, while I applaud the sentiment, it doesn't really answer the statement as to 'what is/would be the basic and equal income ." There has to be some yard-stick by which we measure, what should that measure be ?

also this income would be irrespective of people who can't or won't work or how ?

There are also questions as there would be unequality of resources anyhow for number of reasons, most of them societal per-se.

For e.g. let's say there are 6 persons in an house-hold. 2 old parents who can't work, 1 child who is of working age and married (so he and his wife), and 2 children of their own.

Let's say we (or whoever) gives the family Rs. 6/- every day or every month (we are taking a hypothetical example here.) and let's think that the child/man is one of the bad guys. How do we stop him from taking Rs. 6/- all for himself (for drinking, gambling or whatever purpose). The idea of bank accounts or even post accounts don't work as the man usually gets his way (unfortunately).

I know I'm thinking too far but these are all questions which do get raised when you raise it so would need more answering. While we cannot think of all and any hypothetical situations and corner cases, even at a policy level it should have some sort of balancing act which it doesn't seem to do at the moment.

Again just my 2 paise.

@shirish the whole idea of us trying to change the society is to make it something it is already not. do you agree in principle everyone should have an equal basic income? If you don't even agree to that in principle there is no point in going ahead with the details. Once we agree to it in principle, we can always debate the details.

Do agree everyone has a right to live a decent life even if they can't or won't work? The whole idea of us coming together is to address the issue of inequality in society, not just cry we are helpless.

We can always debate how best to achieve it, but there is no point to debate if you don't even agree we need to do it.

Dude, lets go in to that debate of hypothetical bad people when we are in a position to do that. When the freedom struggle started, they were not discussing who will become the prime minister, the thing that united everyone was that we all need freedom.

Indeed there will be questions because there are people who don't want to change the way our society runs. Why would Anil or Mukesh Ambani care a damn if a poor person gets food or good healthcare or education. The whole idea is to bring people who do want such a change together. We are not going to define our policies based on what others want. You answer for yourself what you want. People will naturally won't come to us if they don't like what we want to do. The point is not to get all people come to us, but only people who agree with us to join us.

A good article on unconditional basic income http://wakeup-world.com/2014/11/24/unconditional-basic-income-an-economic-model-for-a-new-renaissance/

"With issues of social and economic wellbeing and inequity addressed, the potential of a UBI is a renaissance of human creativity never before seen in the history of mankind. We have many unpaid workers in our communities. Volunteers, artists, musicians, homemakers, grandmothers, etc. It’s now time that they were valued, and rewarded monetarily, by our society."

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income for more on basic income.