Breaking down the question
The command word elaborate asks you to unpack and develop a concept, not merely define it. The concept is constitutional morality, and the question specifically attributes it to B. R. Ambedkar, so your answer must present it as he understood it rather than as a generic legal idea.
Ambedkar borrowed the phrase from the historian George Grote's account of Athenian democracy and gave it a distinctive Indian meaning. For Ambedkar, constitutional morality is the settled disposition to observe constitutional forms and methods, to resolve conflict through constitutional means rather than force, and to defend the constitutional order even against one's own immediate interests. Crucially, he warned that constitutional morality is not natural or given; it has to be cultivated, and Indian society, steeped in hierarchy, lacked it.
For a sociology answer, the vital move is to connect constitutional morality to Ambedkar's larger project of social transformation — the annihilation of caste and the bridging of the gap between political and social democracy.
How to approach it
Structure the ten marks around three moves: the meaning and origin of the concept, its content as Ambedkar developed it, and its sociological significance for social change.
Begin with the definition and Ambedkar's borrowing from Grote, stressing his own warning that constitutional morality must be cultivated and is not innate to Indian society. Then elaborate the content — allegiance to constitutional means, self-restraint by those in power, protection of individual liberty and minority rights against majoritarian passion, and the primacy of the rule of law over social custom.
Finally, link it to Ambedkar's diagnosis of Indian society. He argued that India was entering a life of contradictions — political equality of one-person-one-vote alongside social and economic inequality. Constitutional morality is the discipline through which that contradiction is to be resolved by making constitutional values override the hierarchical morality of caste. Close by noting its contemporary relevance as a check on both state and social power.
Model answer
Constitutional morality, as B. R. Ambedkar conceived it, is the disposition of a people to be loyal to the forms, methods and spirit of the Constitution and to resolve their differences through constitutional means rather than through force or the assertion of social power. Ambedkar drew the phrase from the historian George Grote, who used it to describe the Athenian habit of combining freedom with self-restraint and reverence for constitutional authority. Ambedkar adapted it to the Indian context in his concluding speech to the Constituent Assembly and elsewhere, and gave it a warning edge: constitutional morality, he insisted, is not a natural sentiment but an acquired discipline that has to be cultivated, and Indian soil, dominated by the morality of caste and hierarchy, was not naturally hospitable to it.
The content of the concept has several elements. First, it demands allegiance to constitutional processes — that political actors pursue their ends only through lawful and constitutional means. Second, it requires self-restraint, especially by those who wield power, so that authority is exercised within limits rather than through arbitrary will. Third, it protects individual liberty and the rights of minorities against the passions of the majority, making the Constitution a shield for the vulnerable. Fourth, it establishes the supremacy of the rule of law and constitutional values over inherited social custom and religious sanction.
The sociological significance of constitutional morality lies in its place within Ambedkar's vision of social change. He famously observed that India was about to enter a life of contradictions, enjoying equality in politics through universal franchise while continuing to deny equality in social and economic life through caste. Political democracy, he argued, could not endure on the foundation of social hierarchy; it had to become a social democracy in which liberty, equality and fraternity were realised as principles of associated living. Constitutional morality is the ethical discipline through which this transformation is to be pursued — it demands that the values of the Constitution override the hierarchical morality of caste, so that constitutional principles, and not social custom, become the governing norms of public life. For Ambedkar, therefore, constitutional morality was inseparable from the annihilation of caste; it was the civic culture that would allow a formally democratic Constitution to reshape a deeply unequal society.
The concept retains sharp contemporary relevance. It functions as a check not only on state power but also on majoritarian and social power, insisting that inherited hierarchies cannot claim precedence over constitutional guarantees. In this sense constitutional morality is Ambedkar's bridge between a legal document and a transformed social order.
Examiner's perspective
Because this is a ten-mark question on a named thinker, the examiner expects accurate attribution and conceptual fidelity to Ambedkar. Locating the phrase in Grote and reproducing Ambedkar's warning that constitutional morality must be cultivated demonstrates that you know the source rather than improvising.
The mark of a sociological, rather than merely legal, answer is the link to social change. Candidates who connect constitutional morality to the contradiction between political and social democracy, and to the annihilation of caste, show that they grasp its place in Ambedkar's larger project. This is the analytical core the examiner is looking for.
A crisp three-part structure — origin, content, significance — keeps a short answer disciplined. You can develop the theme further through the linked note on the Constitution, law and social change.