#156 The Republic Of Our Future

A long edition for your leisurely Sunday. Thanks for your patience<br/><br/>India Policy Watch #1: Call Of Duty <br/><br/>Insights on burning policy issues in India<br/><br/>-&#160;RSJ<br/><br/>Many among you of a particular age might remember a familiar trope from old Hindi films. A key protagonist, grievously injured or sick, is wheeled into the operation theatre. There&#8217;s a small red bulb on top of the door that turns on. Grim music plays in the background. After a while, the surgeon steps out, take off his gloves and looks at the assorted mix of anxious relatives with resignation. Then he says, &#8220;ab inhe dawa ki nahin dua ki zaroorat hai&#8221; (he needs prayers now; not umm&#8230; paracetamol). <br/><br/>That&#8217;s how I feel when I hear public discourse in any democracy get tangled up between rights and duties. Not a lot of good has come out of exhorting people to do their duty in the history of this world. So pardon my anxiety when I find constitutional functionaries conflate rights and duties, or worse, seem to privilege duties over rights. But that&#8217;s exactly what I have been coming across in the past two months. Two examples will suffice. Last week the PM <a href="https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1791196">made these remarks</a> in an event organised by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma_Kumaris">Brahma Kumaris</a> Sanstha:<br/><br/>At the same time, we also have to admit that in the 75 years after Independence, a malaise has afflicted our society, our nation and all of us. It is that we turned away from our duties and did not give them primacy. In the last 75 years, we only kept talking about rights, fighting for rights and wasting our time. The issue of rights may be right to some extent in certain circumstances, but neglecting one's duties completely has played a huge role in keeping India vulnerable.<br/><br/>India lost considerable time because duties were not accorded priority. We can make up for the gap which has been created due to primacy about rights wh