There can be no social justice without economic prosperity but economic prosperity without social justice is meaningless.

Interpreting the Topic

The topic is a double proposition: prosperity funds justice, and justice redeems prosperity. Redistribution without a surplus merely rations poverty; growth without fairness breeds gilded instability. The essay must argue both halves with evidence, engage the growth-versus-equity debate, and show the institutional design that weds the two.

Dimensions to Develop

• No justice without prosperity: welfare needs fiscal muscle — the post-1991 growth surge financed MGNREGA, the National Food Security Act and mass pension and scholarship systems; NITI Aayog estimates about 25 crore Indians exited multidimensional poverty between 2013-14 and 2022-23, a dividend of growth-funded delivery.
• Prosperity without justice is meaningless: the top 1 per cent corner over a fifth of national income while the bottom half holds a sliver; jobless or uneven growth delegitimises reform, feeds unrest and squanders the demographic dividend — prosperity that bypasses the many is arithmetic, not development.
• Justice as an engine, not a brake: East Asia grew fast because land reform, schooling and health preceded factories; inclusion widens markets and deepens skills — equity is productive investment, not charity.
• The intellectual frame: the Bhagwati-Sen debate — growth-first versus capability-first — is best resolved as sequencing within one strategy rather than a choice between two ideologies.
• Institutional design: Directive Principles (Articles 38 and 39) mandate distributive justice; progressive taxation, universal basic services and affirmative action are the transmission belts that convert GDP into dignity.

Quotes and Anchors

• Ambedkar's warning of 25 November 1949 — entering a life of contradictions, with political equality amid social and economic inequality.
• The Nordic demonstration that dynamic markets and strong safety nets are compatible.
• Growth is the means; justice is the meaning.

Closing Synthesis

Prosperity and justice are not rivals queuing for the same rupee; they are successive gears of the same engine. A society must create wealth in order to share it, and must share wealth in order to keep creating it — the topic's two clauses are, in the end, a single sentence about sustainable development.