The Hindu : Rights and obligations

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 26, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Rights and obligations

THE TAMIL NADU Governor, P.S. Ramamohan Rao's suggestion at a seminar on `Exercising freedom: public interest & individual rights' that rights implied corresponding duties would have to be viewed extremely cautiously in the light of recent tendencies to juxtapose the chapter on Fundamental Rights in the Constitution with the so-called "fundamental duties" listed under Article 51A. It is not right to suppose that because citizens are conferred fundamental rights under the Constitution, it automatically follows that they have corresponding fundamental duties. To impute such an artificial connection between them is tantamount to questioning the basic premise underlying fundamental rights. Equally, it would distort the logic intrinsic to the concept of the rule of law, namely that every law imposes concomitant obligations on citizens. Moreover, in the Indian context, the comparison would be especially inappropriate in view of the radically opposite historical legacy behind them. Whereas the incorporation of fundamental rights reflected the recognition accorded by the free people of modern India to the nobler values of democracy, individual freedoms and liberties, the insertion of Article 51A under the infamous 42nd Amendment to the Constitution during the Emergency in large measure betrayed a lack of faith in the people to discharge their responsibilities as citizens.

By their very definition, fundamental rights are universally recognised as inviolable and hence are sought to be enforced by law and also protected from possible encroachment from the routine legislative business of modern states. The sense in which the rights to life, liberty, equality and equal protection of the law for instance are fundamental is in terms of their essence as definitive of the very identity of modern men and women as free and equal persons. Every other right that they come to acquire as citizens of particular nation-states necessarily presupposes relevant qualifications; whether it is one's right to run for public office or to obtain a driving licence. It is in respect of these latter set of rights that one could invoke accompanying duties and obligations, as well as of forfeiting rights in the event of failure to comply with relevant duties. Thus, while the distinction between fundamental and other rights can reasonably be sustained, such a differentiation simply does not obtain in the case of citizens' duties. Certain rights are fundamental by virtue of the fact that they are held to be unconditional, whereas statutory rights entail corresponding obligations.

Turning to the duties listed in Article 51A, these typically belong to that genre of civic and political culture that has for some time been sought to be brought under the legal straitjacket with little or no regard to the erosion of democratic values that underlie such moves. This is because the requisite public space to deliberate on the real issues of ordinary life has been found wanting in our political discourse. Unfortunately, the legal fraternity has contributed in no small measure to the spread of the illusion that the social ills of the day could be set right by legal quick-fixes. On the contrary, it is about time that we began to honestly acknowledge that respect for the National Anthem and the National Flag, fostering national unity and integrity, or even promoting a scientific temper and a spirit of enquiry are not things one could inculcate among the citizenry through the legal machinery.

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