Effective Utilisation by an Aware and Alert Citizenry

bY EDUARDO FALEIRO
Posted on 2008-08-19
WE have just celebrated the anniversary of our Independence. The freedom struggle was not just for political freedom. It was not merely to dislodge foreign rulers and install our own. It was also for social and economic change and for a life of peace and dignity to all citizens.
The colonial rule destroyed the Indian economy and greatly impoverished the people of India. An estimate by the Cambridge historian Angus Wilson reveals than in the 1700, India’s share of the world income was 22.6 per cent comparable to the entire income of Europe which was then at 23.3 per cent. By 1952, however, India’s share fell to 2.3 per cent of the world income. By all accounts, India was a prosperous nation at the onset of Western colonialism.
The French traveller, Jacques Tavernier in his ‘Travels in India’ written in the 17th century, gives the following account of Indian life. “Even in the smallest villages, rice, flour, butter, milk, beans and other vegetables, sugar and sweetmeats can be procured in abundance”. Yet during the British rule, as per government reports of the time, 70 - 80 per cent of Indians were living at subsistence levels, two-thirds were undernourished and in Bengal nearly four-fifths were undernourished.
At present, the literacy rate in India at 66 per cent is quite low. The Union as well as the state governments must streamline their machinery with a sense of urgency and redouble their efforts if we are to attain the Millenium Development Goals of universal literacy by the year 2015. However, we may recall that the literacy rate in British India in 1947 was just 11 per cent.
India is at present the second fastest growing major economy in the world. Our GDP growth rate was 9 per cent in the financial year 2007-2008. The twenty-first century will reportedly be the Asian century just as the twentieth was the American century and the nineteenth, the European century.
By 2035, China is expected to be the second largest economy in the world and India the third largest. India is contributing to the Asian resurgence. Government is striving towards South Asia as a zone of peace and prosperity in co-operation with all our neighbours.
Our ‘Look East’ policy will strengthen co-operation with other Asian countries. India and the ASEAN have signed an agreement on ‘Partnership for Peace, Progress and Shared Prosperity” to create a free trade area by 2011 with 5 ASEAN countries and by 2016 with the remaining countries of ASEAN. India is now an ASEAN summit partner, along with China, Japan and South Korea.
We are moving towards an Asian trading block, which will rival the European Union. India and China must shed their historical rivalries and advance towards mutual collaboration. Such collaboration will greatly benefit both the countries.
For instance, India has an advantage in computer software and China in hardware. If both countries join hands, they will be able to launch the ‘Asian century of Information Technology’. Whilst the people of India can justifiably face the future with confidence and optimism, yet there is much to be achieved and the task of national regeneration is yet to be fully accomplished.
The framework for responsible citizenship and national regeneration has been laid down in the Indian Constitution in three parts. Part III of the Constitution deals with fundamental rights, while part IV with the directive principles of state policy and part IVA with the fundamental duties. Fundamental rights are basic s human rights, which the state recognises and provides for their enforcement. We are all equally human, the world is one family and all human rights are for all.
The nature and extent of state responsibility for the protection of human rights in India was indicated by the National Human Rights Commission in the case of the Gujarat riots of 2002.
It said, ‘It is the primary and inescapable responsibility of the state to protect the right of life, liberty, equality and dignity of all those who constitute it. It is also the responsibility of the state to ensure that such rights are not violated either through overt acts or through abetment or negligence. It is a clear and emerging principle of human rights jurisprudence that the state is responsible not only for the acts of its own agents but also for the acts of non state players acting within its jurisdiction. The state is, in addition, responsible for any inaction that may cause or facilitate the violation of human rights.”
The directives principles of state policy are guidelines to be kept in mind by the government whilst framing laws and policies. Some of these principles are the promotion of the panchayati raj system, free and compulsory education to all children below the age of 14 years, adoption of a uniform civil code and provision of adequate means of livelihood to all.
The fundamental duties are the moral obligation of all citizens and are specifically intended to promote responsible citizenship and national unity and harmony. We often harp on our rights but neglect and may even be unaware of our duties.
Mahatma Gandhi summed it up, “I learnt from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights to be deserved and preserved come from duty well done.”
Einstein articulated the same thought, “Every day, on hundred occasions, I remind myself that my mental and physical life depends on the toil of other persons, living or dead. So I must try to repay whatever I have received and am receiving”.
The Constitution lists ten fundamental duties. Each has a distinct role and importance in our policy. One of the fundamental duties is ‘to provide harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood among all the people in India, transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities’.
When fanaticism and bigotry stalk the land, the importance of this duty cannot be overstated. At present, the fundamental duties are not enforceable in a court of law.
A former Attorney General of India, Mr Soli Sorabjee suggests that the Supreme Court might “by innovative interpretation make certain duties partly justiceable by infusing them into some directive principles and gradually incorporating them in the fundamental rights”.
What is needed is a citizenry conscious of their rights and of their duties. The union and state governments should work together with voluntary organisations to promote awareness of our rights as well as of our responsibilities and to sensitise the citizens to the values enshrined in our Constitutional framework.