• It denotes the ideals that the State should keep in mind while formulating policies and enacting laws.
• It resembles the ‘Instrument of Instructions’ enumerated in the Government of India Act of 1935. In the words of Dr B R Ambedkar, ‘the Directive Principles are like the instrument of instructions, which were issued to the Governor-General and to the Governors of the colonies of India by the British Government under the Government of India Act of 1935.

What is called Directive Principles is merely another name for the instrument of instructions. The only difference is that they are instructions to the legislature and the executive’.

• It constitutes a very comprehensive economic, social and political programme for a modern democratic State which aimed at realising the high ideals of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity as outlined in the Preamble to the Constitution. They embody the concept of a ‘welfare state’ which was absent during the colonial era.