Tomorrow is India’s 80th Independence Day. In just over a year, it will be four score years to the day India embarked on a momentous journey as an independent nation to fulfil its “tryst with destiny.”
Eighty years is a milestone for individuals, but for a country, it is time to draw a fresh breath and embark with renewed vigour on the unfinished tasks that lie ahead.
So how should We the People of this great multi-hued nation commemorate freedom from foreign rule?
With pomp and splendour, for sure. But also by taking a few minutes for quiet reflection. On whether we, as citizens, have fulfilled our part of the grand bargain. Or have we, with constant harping on narrow sub-national identities of caste, language, religion, etc, given credence to former British leader Winston Churchill’s old put-down, “India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator.”
Every successful democracy presumes a marriage of two ideas: rights and responsibilities. Citizens must have certain rights. These are the Fundamental Rights enshrined in India’s Constitution (Part III).
Not every Indian may be able to list these out, or even give them a name, but scarcely does a day go by when someone, somewhere in some remote part of the country, is not instinctively exercising these rights. Whether it is students at a protest in Delhi or Ranchi, or farmers at an agitation around the capital, few Indians seem unaware of their basic rights. That is no small achievement.
But along with rights come certain responsibilities. And it is when we examine the other side of the national compact that unifies us, the flip side of Fundamental Rights, our Fundamental Duties, that the picture is less encouraging.
This may be because the latter were never part of the Constitution as originally framed. Perhaps the framers assumed that since freedom had been so hard-won, we would “follow the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle for freedom” without explicitly being asked to. Alas, evidence of it is sparse.
It took a Constitutional amendment in 1976 to include 10 Fundamental Duties (Part IV-A) after a panel led by Swaran Singh recommended as much. An 11th duty was added in 2002. Unfortunately, over the years, these duties have all but vanished from India’s public discourse.
Today, while the right to freedom of expression under Article 19 has stout defenders, as seen during this July’s Jantar Mantar stir, there is little talk of our fundamental duty to “promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all...” transcending various “diversities.” Or to “safeguard public property and to abjure violence,” to list just two elementary duties enjoined upon citizens.
This must change. Rights and duties must go hand-in-hand. Just as a society that values individual freedom cannot progress without rights, no nation can get very far if individuals with rights do not have duties that they hold equally dear.
If basic rights shield citizens from the might of the state, basic duties make citizens aware of their moral obligations towards fellow citizens and the country. Although a power asymmetry between people and the state might make rights seem more valuable, both operate in a mutually reinforcing loop.
This Independence Day, even as we stand proud as citizens of a sovereign nation and guard our rights, let us look within and deliver on our duties. To echo a former US leader, let’s ask not just what the country can do for us, but also what we can do for the country.