Ethical Underpinnings towards Human Rights in India

Human Rights have been embedded within the Constitution of India ranging from ideas of equality, prohibition of discrimination, certain freedoms that give the citizens various rights and protections. The question that subtly gets erased is the disconnect of the constitutional values from the everyday lives of the masses. The political right to vote is exercisable and is also non-contestable – but social and cultural discrimination has become an everyday reality for us.

It is important to view the everyday socio-political events in the country through an intersectional lens. How easy is it for a marginalized person to access Courts? The religious polarization is not only effective for vote-garnering that keeps the legislative pillars strong but the caste-class-gendered divisions within executives, judiciary and the media outlets also leads to a system that makes human rights a contested question.

At the core, human rights are fundamentally recognised by the State and the global order required for a human being to live a life of liberty, freedom and conscience.

It is not only important to demand and fight for human rights from the powers that be, but also to ethically practice a social life that engages in the acts of freedoms and liberty – of engaging with each other, despite the caste-class-gendered associations that divide us. Recognising human rights as an inalienable rights, for our very own selves, is a step forward. The state has tools and processes to give us our rights – the Supreme Court and the High Courts primarily are responsible to protect our rights as citizens. The social curve that the Indian society is going through has led us into an impasse – in a post-truth era and a risk society, we have ethically given up the plural idea of living amicably with each other. One has to recognise ethical foundations of acting and being in the world as a human being, to be able to define and protect their rights from being erased and curtailed.