The Vice President of India Shri M. Hamid Ansari has said that the
youthful audience, blessed with a critical faculty and brimming with excellence
in their chosen disciplines, knows only too well that responsibilities of
citizenship cannot be forsaken nor can they be delegated or postponed since
eternal vigilance is the only way to safeguard liberty and rights and, as
Edmond Burke put it, ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for
good men to do nothing’. He was addressing at the “12th Convocation
of the University of Hyderabad” in Hyderabad today.
The Vice President has opined that
it is clear that being a citizen and being a good citizen are far from being
the same thing; the former is a legal fact while the latter demands
participation in and contribution to the common good. Furthermore, and
depending on the nature and extent of participation in civic burden and
activities, it is possible to categorise citizens into three types: (a) those
that are personally responsible, (b) those who participate in social activities
within the established structures and values, and (c) those who go beyond the
first two categories and critically assess situations to improve upon them and
actively seek realisation of goals and values enshrined in the Preamble of the
Constitution. The first is essential and obligatory; the second is desirable
and necessary; the third would set us upon the path of full realisation of our
potential as a society.
Following
is the text of the Vice President’s address :
“It is not customary to begin with a
disclosure. Yet, I owe it to this audience to admit that the persuasive powers
of the Chancellor and the formidable reputation of this seat of learning were
sufficient to induce me to come here today and feel happy about it.
Add to these Hyderabad’s own cosmopolitan
essence. The founder of the city in the sixteenth century decreed that it
should be ‘a replica of paradise itself’. Few down the ages disagreed with the
outcome. Diamonds from nearby mines gave it fame and centrality and textiles
commercial significance. It spawned a charmingly rich language and a composite
culture. A Qutb Shahi poet summed up its place in the world: Dakan hai angina, angoothi hai jag.
None would have then realised that
the closing years of the 20th century would make the city a Koh-i-noor in terms of modern science
and technology. It speaks volumes for Hyderabad’s genius for accommodation and
change while holding on to the thread of excellence. The University of
Hyderabad, occupying the first position in a recent ranking of Indian
universities, is itself a good example.
Convocations are occasions to
honour intellectual achievement. The pursuit of knowledge, however, is not
subject to formal barriers and inquiry in any of its branches does not end with
the acquisition of a university decree. The mind trained to think logically and
critically does not cease to function. This often brings it face to face with reality
at variance with tradition and to which it feels compelled to respond. It is
here that the two worlds, within the academia and beyond it, come together.
There is a perception that in a
gone by era a university was an idyllic and isolated enclosure where knowledge
was pursued for its own sake unrelated to mundane utilitarian requirements of
the lesser world beyond its portals. The reality, however, was somewhat less
prosaic and not devoid of a carefully crafted umbilical cord to society and its
spokes-persons. It was also subject to change. Today it is candidly accepted
that teaching and research in a university, and the advances in knowledge it
produces, should in considerable measure be related to the changing needs and
demands of society. The centrality of social purpose thus stands underlined. The
really teasing question pertains to its ambit.
Some weeks back I came across an
introspective essay by Professor Stephen Chan, who teaches international
relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Seeking
a new internationalism and exploring different cultural traditions, he dwells
on the prevailing contest between what he calls “assertions of certainty’ and described
them as ‘about the best form of coercion to apply in any international moral
impasse’. He urges the need to speak publicly and with imagination about
complex things, and challenge orthodoxy with correctives. ‘The idea’, he adds, ‘is
to think, and not be either led or simply moved
by images of distress.’ The concerned citizen, he concludes, should be
motivated by five principles: transparency, lack of arbitrariness,
accountability, compassion and redress.
There is nothing altogether novel
about any of Chan’s five principles; yet, taken together, they do offer a road
map for action. This youthful audience, blessed with a critical faculty and brimming
with excellence in their chosen disciplines, knows only too well that
responsibilities of citizenship cannot be forsaken nor can they be delegated or
postponed since eternal vigilance is the only way to safeguard liberty and
rights and, as Edmond Burke put it, ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph
of evil is for good men to do nothing’.
Some of you would, as I would, like
to explore this further. What are the legal and the moral imperatives for the
citizen? What is the most feasible manner in which his/her responsibilities can
be undertaken? Both are inextricably linked to, and influenced by our
perception of the human character and of the world we live in. It unavoidably
influences the shaping of the future.
Let us consider the latter. The
term human has a certain connotation. A random perusal of the dictionary
suggests a number of associated terms: humane,
humaneness, humanism, humanitarian, humanitarianism, humanity, humanize,
humankind, and humanly. Each of these depicts an aspect being human and
thereby becomes prescriptive in some measure if the claim to be human is to be
sustained. It becomes clearer when put alongside its antonym which suggests its
negation or opposite. Furthermore, and to use the words of the UN’s Universal
Declaration of Human Rights of December 1948, the ambit of humanity and
therefore of human rights extends to ‘all peoples and all nations.’
Those of you familiar with
political philosophy would recall the argument by which Aristotle had
distinguished between ‘a good man’ and ‘a good citizen’ and concluded that the
virtue of the two ‘cannot be always the same’ except in the case of a perfect
state. He then defined a good citizen as one who should know ‘how to govern
like a free man and how to obey like a free man’. He or she should, as a later
philosopher put it, appreciate both the necessity and the moral imperative of
being free.
These attributes of citizenship
were refined down the ages. A famous example is the Funeral Oration of
Pericles, recorded for posterity by the historian Thucydides. Two of the
attributes cited by him have universal validity: firstly, that citizens ‘are
fair judges of public matters’, and secondly that ‘instead of looking on
discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it is an
indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.’
A citizen is endowed with rights, is
a participant in public life not on sufferance but by right, does so as an
equal and not as a subject. The raja-praja
concept that has such an established place in our daily vocabulary is a
relic of an earlier era and has no basis in today’s legal structure. Its
persistence, nevertheless, sheds much light on the psychological baggage that
we sub-consciously carry.
It is essential to remember that the
modern democratic state has specified the citizen’s charter of rights; it also
dwells on the duties of citizenship. We do not have to look for instances
because we ourselves are the model. The Constitution of India is one of the
best examples of a constitution that blends the rights and duties of
citizenship harmoniously. In terms of sheer numbers and scale, the extent of
human freedom and liberation that was granted was unprecedented in human
history. It has stood the test of time and has been widely acclaimed.
The charter of rights of citizens
is spelt out in the Constitution of India in the chapter relating to
fundamental rights. These pertain to six broad categories: the right to
equality, right to freedom, right against exploitation, right to freedom of
religion, cultural and educational rights, and right to seek constitutional
remedies. Some other rights are interspersed in other sections of the document,
e.g. protection against arbitrary taxation, freedom of trade, commerce and intercourse,
and group rights of certain classes. The text is underscored by an overarching
framework of constitutional morality.
Many years after the Constitution
was finalised and proclaimed, a section on Fundamental Duties was added, based
on the perception that successful functioning of a democratic polity
necessitates active participation by citizens in the processes of governance
through assumption and discharge of responsibilities by the citizen body. This
approach has been accepted by the courts of law.
You would note that Article 51A of
our Constitution contains a set of eleven duties of citizens described as fundamental. Three of these need to be
highlighted in the context of our discussion today. These pertain to the
promotion of harmony and spirit of common brotherhood, development of a
scientific temper, humanism and spirit of inquiry and reform, and striving for
excellence in all levels of individual and collective activity. These have to
be read with the requirements of justice and fraternity so clearly enunciated
in the Preamble of the Constitution.
I dwell on this because you, the
highly educated among our citizens, bear a special responsibility in this
regard. As you leave the sanctuary of the university and step into the world
beyond it, it is appropriate to remind you of this compendium of rights and
duties and of the need to reiterate your commitment to them. This would assist
you in assessing the direction in which we as a citizen-body are travelling, as
also to explore correctives where needed.
It has been observed by an eminent
public figure that we are today ‘desperately groping for a political culture
based on integrity’. One obvious reason for this is the dilution of system of
values at the individual and collective levels. Views to the contrary are also around.
Some, espousing pragmatism, propel us towards the dogma that politics is the art of the possible. The first is reflective of anguish, the second
of smugness.
Here again, as in the case of the
conceptual framework of humanity, the ambit and implications of terms like integrity and possible have to be clearly understood. Integrity stands for moral
excellence and honesty; its absence would suggest immorality and dishonesty. In
the same way, a term like ‘possible’ leaves open a range of possibilities
including the acceptance of the immoral and the dishonest.
It should therefore be possible to
argue that our quest for humanity and integrity does, lead us to an approach in
which we proactively seek and induce values that are human, humane, moral and
honest, values and practices that contribute fully to the public good in terms
defined and prescribed by the Constitution. Thus is made the transition from
what is ordinarily possible to what may be perceived as impossible.
Many decades back Gandhiji had
identified Seven Social Sins. They
are inscribed on a tablet near his Samadhi at Rajghat. This identification is
essential but not sufficient. The need of the hour is to redress the wrong, to
apply the corrective, to change.
Lest it be suggested that the
foregoing is in the realm of the philosophical and the ideal, let me hasten to
stress that a deficit of integrity and constitutional morality is wasteful of
resources and harmful to the public good in material terms. This is
substantiated by the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Public
Accounts Committee of the Parliament and the India chapter of the Transparency
International. Thanks to the RTI, a good deal of information is otherwise also
available in the public domain. Together they reveal a disturbing pattern of
departures from norms of integrity.
Further a field, the same holds
good in varying measure for our commitment to norms of human rights, humanity
and justice inscribed in the Constitution and supplemented or amplified in customary
international law and international covenants subscribed to by the Republic of
India.
The need for correctives is thus
evident. Public awareness is one aspect of the matter, focused public action is
another.
It is clear that being a citizen
and being a good citizen are far from being the same thing; the former is a
legal fact while the latter demands participation in and contribution to the
common good. Furthermore, and depending on the nature and extent of participation
in civic burden and activities, it is possible to categorise citizens into
three types: (a) those that are personally responsible, (b) those who
participate in social activities within the established structures and values,
and (c) those who go beyond the first two categories and critically assess
situations to improve upon them and actively seek realisation of goals and
values enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution. The first is essential
and obligatory; the second is desirable and necessary; the third would set us
upon the path of full realisation of our potential as a society.
There is, of course, a fourth –
unmentionable - category of those who flout rules, evade responsibilities, and disgrace
by their behaviour the civic community to which they belong. A mature society
would ostracise them, a less mature one would endure the burden while seeking a
corrective.
The commitment of a society and
polity to educating, grooming and nurturing its citizens, eventually manifests
itself in the latter’s approach to civic participation, standards of personal
responsibility and adherence to constitutional morality. Thus a substantive
contribution to the shaping of citizens can be made and educational
institutions, including those of higher learning, can play a major role in this
national effort.
One other aspect of the matter
bears scrutiny. Technology and globalisation have ensured that isolation is no
longer an option and that we have to live in the world and with the world. This
necessitates an acceptance of global standards, rules, and norms of behaviour
but without sacrificing our identity and values.
Pluralism and accommodation of
diversity is a characteristic of our societal reality.. The Indian approach to
multiculturalism, in the words of an eminent academic, is to ‘aspire towards a
form of citizenship that is marked neither by a universalism generated by
complete homogenisation, nor by particularism of self-identical and closed
communities’. This model is of wider relevance in an era that seeks to define
the contours of a 21st century citizen who would have a national as
well as a transnational identity.
The foregoing considerations help us
to recapitulate the three of the eleven aspects of Article 51A and assess their
relevance. A diverse and stratified society like ours requires social harmony
for its cohesion, and needs a scientific spirit and excellence to seek and
attain all round development. To promote and attain these is among the
principal duties of citizens and this is to be undertaken proactively rather
than passively, with a spirit of seeking justice and achieving fraternity.
This then is the task for the
citizen body, and particularly for those like yourselves who are stepping into
world beyond the portals of this seat of learning. Every individual has an
ideal, and an idiom for expressing it. This would be true of each of you. I
have, speaking personally, often found a few couplets of the poet Mohammad
Iqbal of considerable relevance and would like to share them with you:
Sitaroan ke aage
jahan aur bhi hain
Abhi
ishq ke imtihaan aur bhi hain
Qanaat na kar aalam-e-rang-o-boo par
Chaman aur bhi, aashiyaan aur bhi hain
Tu shaheen hai parwaz hai kaam tera
Tere saamne aasman aur bhi hain.
There are
worlds beyond the stars
Tests of
passion yet to come
Content
be not with the colour and scent around you
There are other gardens, other nests too
Thou art a falcon, flight
is thy destiny
There are
other skies that await you.
I congratulate the select few
rewarded for excellence and all those who have received their university
degrees today. I wish them happiness in personal life and success in
professional pursuits. I urge them to remember at all times that they are
citizens of this country and, by virtue of that, claimants of rights and
obligated to discharge duties.”
SK/AS