Fundamental Duties – a right we ignore

Fundamental Duties – a right we ignore
“People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights”, this is what Indira Gandhi once said about duties and rights.How many times have we heard about organizations working for Fundamental Rights of the citizens of India? And, how many times have seen or heard about an organization or people fighting or raising their voices for Fundamental Duties of Indian Citizens? There is absolutely no second thought about the fact that we definitely need people and organizations to stand up and protect the fundamental rights and prevent exploitation of people who cannot raise their voices, but what about the people who are enjoying their fundamental rights and yet are indifferent towards their fundamental duties? Who takes the responsibility to make them aware of their duties?India as an Independent Nation has a modern history of sixty odd years which can be considered fairly young. There are bound to be lacunae in the implementation of fundamental rights, but over the years we as a nation have been successful in ensuring that majority of our citizens are able to enjoy their fundamental rights. This is a great achievement for us and we must applaud ourselves for it. In this achievement a major role has been played by activists and organizations that have fought for the rights of people who could not have fought themselves.Times though have changed; we have reached a stage when a certain section of our society enjoys their rights. These people tend to very comfortably ignore the fact that for every right that they cherish they have a duty which they must fulfill.Now is the time for us to rise and take cognizance of the fact that we have certain duties towards our nation. Just like the fundamental rights, the constitution has also defined a set of ten fundamental duties which we must fulfill. Let’s have a look at the fundamental duties and how we perform them.
1. “To abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem.”Respecting the constitution means respecting the law. On the face of it we would call ourselves law abiding citizens but if you take a deeper look you would find that small bribe you paid to the policeman on being caught on the roads or the tax that you evaded and you were supposed to pay or when you stayed a mute spectator to an act of crime. Did you perform your duty?
2. “To cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle for freedom.”Our national freedom struggle stood for our fight for justice, our fight for self respect. Ask yourself how many times you actually take a stand on any issue regarding justice and self respect and expressed it and lived up to it, not taking a neutral viewpoint. Did you perform your duty?
3. “To uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.”Do we even know why are the Maoists fighting, why are there struggles and terrorism in North East. Why have we never asked the ruling parties to solve the root cause of such struggles? Is this what we do to keep our nation’s unity? Did we perform our duty?
4. “To defend the country and render national service when called upon to do so.”How many of us (including me) ever considered armed forces as a career option? Have we ever tried to find out why is our Armed Forces currently under staffed? Have we ever tried to understand why is the youth not interested in joining the forces and taken an effort to even raising our opinion on the right platform? Did we perform our duty?
5. “To promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women.”Do all those people who act as facilitators of communal riots have ever thought about the consequences if every citizen of India starts rioting. Have those people known for making instigative statements never thought beyond their personal gains? Did they perform their duty?
6. “To value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture.”Any monument you visit will tell you the story of who visited that place and with whom. Some of us have a very nice way of leaving a mark behind where ever they go, scratching the monuments. Have they ever thought how ashamed will they feel if they are asked to show the same monument to other people and foreign visitors and if not why has the society not been able to instill the feeling of shame in them? Did we perform our duty?
7. “To protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures.”Even the Mt, Everest is getting polluted. We leave behind a trail of plastic bags, used cans, paper plates and other garbage in every place that we visit. Is this how we protect and improve our environment? Did we perform our duty?
8. “To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.”Spirit of inquiry is getting lost in the slowly emerging don’t care and chalta hai chalne do attitude of the people. If we let this trend to continue we would be nothing more than a herd of sheep following a master. Did we perform our duty?
9. “To safeguard public property and to abjure violence.”The first ex-pression of protest, breaking of state transport buses, destroying government property, is their fight against the property? Why can’t they understand that the government property comes from tax payer’s money? Did they perform our duty?
10. “To strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavor and achievement.”We should move from being a nation of adapters to a nation of achievers. We should inculcate the feeling of achievement in our young minds and bring more of Nobel Prizes, Grammies, Academy Awards, Olympic medals back home. Have we performed our duty?

By fulfilling our duties we might just end up being more honest, paying tax to the government and giving it more money to spend on development, stand up against things which are wrong as per our conscience, be more sensitive to fellow citizens and their problems, increasing the head count of our armed forces, having lesser riots and communal problems, presenting a cleaner and better India to the world, and create a truly world class countryThe time has come when we appreciate that by fulfilling our duties towards our nation we can propel India on the path of development. If every citizen in our country starts recognizing this, India shall be a much better place to live in and we shall surely be the super power of the world. Economic growth has already taken off; we are lagging in our social growth. Cognizance of our fundamental duties is one of the ways we can ensure our social growth. Each and every entity has a specific role to play in this movement, a drive towards developing a new genre of Indians. The role of the government could be aimed at ensuring some form of social incentives for those who fulfill the fundamental duties and social sanctions for those who don’t. The role of organizations could be aimed at providing a platform for people to come and discuss the duties and way to implement them; to opinionate about issues related to fundamental duties and help the government enforce social incentives and sanctions. The role of the individuals could be to spread awareness at the grass root levels.Each and every citizen should be made aware of their duties towards the nation and we should aim towards developing a citizenry which is dutiful and conscious of the fact that to build a powerful nation every citizen must put in his or her contribution.