Comment: “The true source of right is duty. If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek.” (M. K. Gandhi) (2002, 20 Marks)
The lines are from M. K. Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) in Young India (8 January 1925). He went on: if we leave duties unperformed and run after rights, they will escape us like a will-o’-the-wisp. The claim concerns the origin of rights. Duty is primary and a right is its derivative, so the liberal order of priority is inverted.
What the Statement Claims
- A genealogical claim. Rights are not natural possessions carried into society, as for John Locke. They emerge when people perform their obligations.
- A prudential claim. Chasing rights is self-defeating: a society of claimants multiplies conflict and leaves no one to meet the claims.
- The Gita as ground. He tied the maxim to nishkama karma: action is ours, its fruit is not. Duty is the action and the right is the fruit, which comes unsought.
Why Gandhi Reasoned This Way
- Reciprocity. Every right of mine is someone’s duty. If all perform their duties, every right is already met without being demanded.
- Swaraj as self-rule. Freedom begins in self-restraint. A people that only demands rights has not learnt to rule itself.
- Dharma universalised. He drew on the duty-centred Indian tradition but detached duty from caste, making it the obligation of every person.
- Human rights. Replying to Julian Huxley, UNESCO’s Director-General, on its inquiry into human rights (25 May 1947), he wrote that he had learnt from his illiterate but wise mother that rights worth deserving and preserving come from duty well done, and that the right to live accrues only when we do the duty of citizenship of the world.
Affinities and Tensions
| Position | Relation to Gandhi |
|---|---|
| Thomas Hill Green | Close. Rights are powers society recognises because they serve the common good. |
| Natural-rights liberalism (Locke) | Opposed. Rights exist before and apart from duties. |
| Ronald Dworkin‘s rights as trumps | Opposed. Rights must override collective goals, not wait on them. |
| UDHR (1948), Art. 29(1) | Partial echo. Everyone has duties to the community, but rights come first in the text. |
Critique
- Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld‘s analysis shows a confusion. My claim-right correlates with your duty, not with my own. Linking my right to my own performance makes entitlement conditional, which rights language exists to prevent.
- Dependence on others’ virtue. If my right exists only because others do their duty, I have no remedy when they fail.
- B. R. Ambedkar‘s objection is historical. Varna-dharma loaded duties on the lowest castes and denied them rights. Duty-talk had served hierarchy, so the Constitution made Fundamental Rights justiciable (Art. 32). Yet Ambedkar also argued in Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah (1943) that rights depend on the social and moral conscience of society, a point close to Gandhi’s.
The Indian Settlement Today
- Article 51A was added by the 42nd Amendment (1976) on the Swaran Singh Committee‘s advice, during the Emergency, when rights stood suspended. The 86th Amendment (2002) added the eleventh duty, on parents to educate children. The duties are non-justiciable, reversing Gandhi’s order while keeping his vocabulary.
- Official rhetoric has since revived duty: Rajpath was renamed Kartavya Path in September 2022. Critics warn that citizens’ duties can be emphasised to dilute claims against the state.
Conclusion
Gandhi’s maxim is persuasive as an ethic of citizenship and a corrective to rights without responsibility. It is weak as a juridical ground, since rights protect precisely those whom others fail in their duty. The defensible synthesis is the Constitution’s: rights enforceable against power, with duties cultivating the civic character that makes rights secure.