Rights and duties: kinds, human rights, fundamental rights and duties

1. Meaning and definitions of rights

• Laski, A Grammar of Politics: “Rights are those conditions of social life without which no man can seek, in general, to be himself at his best.”
• Bosanquet: “A right is a claim recognised by society and enforced by the State.”
• T.H. Green: a power claimed and recognised as contributory to the common good.
• Holland: a man’s capacity of influencing the acts of another by means not of his own strength but of the opinion or the force of society.

2. Nature (features) of rights

1. Rights exist only in society; Robinson Crusoe alone on his island has no rights.
2. A right is a claim of the individual, but one that society recognises.
3. Rights are for the common good; a claim harmful to society is not a right.
4. Rights are universal: available to all equally, not to a privileged few.
5. Legal rights are enforced by the State.
6. Rights are not absolute; they are subject to reasonable restrictions (for example Article 19(2) to (6)).
7. Rights are dynamic: new rights emerge (privacy, information, environment).
8. Rights carry duties with them.

3. Kinds of rights

• Natural rights: belong to man by nature, before the State (Locke’s life, liberty and property). Criticised because rights are meaningful only in society, but the idea fed the American and French declarations and modern human rights.
• Moral rights: based on the moral sense of the community and enforced by public opinion, not by courts (the right of aged parents to respect from their children, as distinct from their enforceable right to maintenance).
• Legal rights, recognised and enforced by the State, of three kinds:
  • Civil: life, personal liberty, equality before law, freedom of speech, religion, movement, property, family, contract.
  • Political: to vote, to contest elections, to hold public office, to criticise and petition the government.
  • Economic: to work, to fair wages, to reasonable hours, to rest and leisure, to social security. Laski said political democracy is unreal without economic rights.

4. Safeguards of rights

A written constitution with a bill of rights; an independent judiciary with power of judicial review; the rule of law; separation of powers; decentralisation; a free press; a vigilant public opinion (Laski: eternal vigilance is the price of liberty); an active opposition; and human rights institutions such as the NHRC.

5. Human rights

Human rights are the rights every person has simply by being human, regardless of nationality, race, sex or religion. After the Second World War the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948 (celebrated as Human Rights Day). It has 30 articles covering civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights. The two Covenants of 1966, on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, made them binding treaties; together with the UDHR they are called the International Bill of Rights.

In India, the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 set up the National Human Rights Commission and State Human Rights Commissions. It defines human rights as the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the International Covenants and enforceable by courts in India.

6. Fundamental rights (a special note)

Part III of the Constitution (Articles 12 to 35), modelled partly on the American Bill of Rights, guarantees six groups of rights:

1. Right to equality (Articles 14–18), including abolition of untouchability and titles.
2. Right to freedom (Articles 19–22): the six freedoms of Article 19, protection in respect of conviction, life and personal liberty (Article 21), right to education (Article 21A), protection against arbitrary arrest.
3. Right against exploitation (Articles 23–24): traffic in human beings, forced labour, child labour in hazardous employment.
4. Right to freedom of religion (Articles 25–28).
5. Cultural and educational rights (Articles 29–30), including the right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions.
6. Right to constitutional remedies (Article 32): Ambedkar called it the very soul and heart of the Constitution. The Supreme Court can issue writs of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, certiorari and quo warranto.

The right to property was removed from Part III by the Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978 and is now a constitutional right under Article 300A. The courts have read Article 21 widely: in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, 1978 INSC 16, the procedure that deprives a person of life or liberty must be just, fair and reasonable; in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, 2017 INSC 801, a nine-judge bench held privacy to be a fundamental right. Fundamental rights are part of the basic structure (Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, 1973 INSC 91). During an emergency, Article 359 allows enforcement of most of them to be suspended, but not Articles 20 and 21 (since the Forty-fourth Amendment).

7. Duties: meaning and kinds

A duty is an obligation to do or not to do something. Where a right is a claim, a duty is what is owed in return.

• Moral duties: rest on conscience and public opinion; not enforced by courts (to help the poor, to speak the truth, to respect elders).
• Legal duties: imposed by law and enforced with penalties (to pay taxes, to obey laws, to serve on a jury where required).
• Positive and negative: duties to act (paying taxes) and to abstain (not to harm others’ property).
• Some writers add civic duties: allegiance to the State, voting, serving the country in an emergency.

8. Fundamental duties (a note)

Article 51A (Part IVA) was inserted by the Forty-second Amendment, 1976 on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee, drawing on the example of the USSR Constitution. It listed ten duties; an eleventh was added by the Eighty-sixth Amendment, 2002. Every citizen is to:

1. abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem;
2. cherish and follow the noble ideals of the freedom struggle;
3. uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India;
4. defend the country and render national service when called upon;
5. promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood, and renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women;
6. value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture;
7. protect and improve the natural environment, and have compassion for living creatures;
8. develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform;
9. safeguard public property and abjure violence;
10. strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity;
11. as a parent or guardian, provide opportunities for education to his child or ward between the ages of six and fourteen years.

They are not directly enforceable, but courts use them to interpret laws and to uphold reasonable restrictions on rights, and Parliament has given several of them effect through legislation (for example the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, and environmental laws).

9. Rights and duties are correlative

Every right implies a duty, and the two cannot be separated. Laski: “my rights are built upon your duties”. The correlation runs four ways.

1. My right is your duty: my right to life imposes on everyone the duty not to kill me.
2. My right is my duty: my right to free speech carries the duty to respect the same right in others and not to defame them.
3. Right against the State, duty of the State: the citizen’s right to education under Article 21A imposes on the State the duty to provide free and compulsory education to children of six to fourteen.
4. Right from the State, duty to the State: since the State protects my rights, I owe it allegiance, obedience to law and payment of taxes.

Further examples: the right to vote and the duty to vote responsibly; the right to property and the duty to pay property tax; the parent’s right of guardianship and the duty under Article 51A(k). Gandhi made the same point from the other side: rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

How this is examined

January 2026 (100-mark): “Define rights. Explain the various kinds of rights” (16 marks) and “Fundamental Rights” as a short note. January 2026 (80-mark): “Define ‘Rights’. Explain the different types of rights” (10 marks), and short notes on “Important duties of a citizen” and “Human Rights”. June 2025: “Explain the meaning of duties and its kinds” (10), “Explain the fundamental duties” and “Discuss the Human Rights” (6 each). January 2025: “Define Rights. Explain its kinds and nature” (16) and “Fundamental Duties” as a short note. August 2024: “Define right. Explain the features and relationship between rights and duties” (10). April 2023: “Define rights and discuss its safeguards” (10).