Though fundamental duties are not enforceable constitutionally, they are as vital as fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution.
President of India Droupadi Murmu in her address to the nation on Independence Day eve said that the keyword for India today is compassion; for the downtrodden, for the needy, and those on the margins. Stating that some of our national values have been incorporated in our Constitution as the fundamental duties of the citizen, she appealed to every citizen to know about their fundamental duties and follow them in letter and spirit so that our nation reaches new heights.After independence in 1947, India has made tremendous progress in various spheres of activity more so in economic development. But despite welfare measures, the distribution aspect of this development has not percolated down properly to lower sections of society. After the political change that occurred in the country following the general elections in 2014, this aspect of development too has been taken care of more vigorously and the poverty line brought down but still much needs to be done to eliminate the evil of poverty.The President appealed to every citizen to know about their fundamental duties and follow them in letter and spirit. It is a common observation that in India a vast dichotomy exists between rights and duties.
While we are keen on our rights we talk very rarely about our duties as citizens of free India. There is hardly any realisation that our fundamental rights entail responsibilities and fundamental duties. We also appear to be generally not aware of the dictum that a person`s rights start from where others' rights end. In his `Man Ki Baat` program from Akashvani on 29.1.20017, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi spoke about rights and duties and the need to bridge the gulf between the two in our country.The concept of duties has not been new to India as these have been a part of our traditions in various spheres of human activity from times immemorial. A long spell of foreign rule for over a millennium in our country had distorted our sense of rights and duties, drained us of most of our rich values, and left us bereft of any positive inculcation of the spirit of duties and responsibilities. Even the concept of Dharma assiduously evolved in Hinduism had got much distorted. The cumulative effect of this long foreign subjugation had been that despite our unique spiritual heritage we had turned into self-oriented individuals out to further our interests at any cost. Even our value of the correlation of means and ends had got mauled.
Framers of the Constitution of free India were conscious of it when they finalised the Constitution of India. It guaranteed various fundamental rights to every citizen of India which are enumerated and defined in part III of the Constitution. These are enforceable by courts and broadly include the right to equality, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and expression, right against exploitation, cultural and educational rights, and right to constitutional remedies. In section IV, the Constitution has also laid down directive principles enunciating fundamental obligations of the State to its citizens. Though not enforceable by courts, these aim at making India a progressive and developed nation and welfare State.Apart from these fundamental rights and directive principles, the fundamental duties of the citizens of the country were incorporated into the Constitution of the country through the forty-second amendment to it in 1976. Like directive principles, these too are not enforceable by courts but constitute moral obligations of the citizens of the country.
These include respect for our Constitution, the pursuit of noble ideals laid down by our national struggle for independence, work for protecting our sovereignty, promotion of harmony and spirit of common brotherhood among all people transcending religious, linguistic and regional, and sectional diversities, valuing and preserving our rich cultural heritage and protecting environment, safeguarding public property and abjuring violence, developing scientific temper, humanism, the spirit of inquiry and reform and striving for excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity.The time has come when the people of India will have to bridge this wide gulf between our constitutional rights and duties. To examine lending legal support to the gigantic task, in February this year the Supreme Court asked Centre and State governments as to how they intend to sensitise citizens on the importance of knowing their fundamental duties enshrined in our constitution. It also agreed to examine a PIL seeking that moral obligations of duties be converted into legal commitment by enacting a law.
After decades and for many years now India has a working, stable central government poised yet again for faster socio-economic growth in a more corruption-free atmosphere. With this background as already pointed out by this writer in his article on “Rights and Duties” published on 24.2.2017 and with vast technological and other resources at their command, the government and people of India have to carry out this sustainable campaign with the same missionary spirit with which our leaders carried out successfully the freedom struggle. This has also to be done with the same zeal with which Ashoka erected his famous edicts in far-flung areas of his vast empire over two thousand years ago to instill discipline, a sense of duty, and moral values in the people.
The author a former IIS officer and producer. The views expressed are personal.
