Of duties in our times

Obey Unquestioningly

In a recent speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi waxed eloquent about the need to do one’s duties and not insist on their rights. He said that for the last 75 years, people have been “wasting time” fighting for their rights. And that has made the country weak, he added for good measure.

It’s a fine thought, no doubt. Everyone must do their duties. As ordinary citizens, we do so by paying taxes and obeying the rule of law. But are our rulers similarly bound by a code of duties? The 11 Fundamental Duties listed in the Constitution — do they apply to them as well? No sir, they never believed in the Constitution, in the first place. Of course, they have sworn to protect and defend the Constitution; bear true faith and allegiance to it, whether they are MLAs, MPs, or ministers, Chief or Prime. But that’s a formality, a requirement to hold the office, hence a compulsion.

Let us look at it from their viewpoint. That’s called empathy. Firstly, as soon as one is an elected representative, he is above the law. In fact, he is the law. When a leader claims to embody the “will of the people”, of all 1.3 billion of them, as one claims, even if only 30% of them voted for him and the rest pointedly voted against him, then surely he is not bound by such minor inconveniences as the Constitution or the other arms of our democracy, Parliament and Judiciary, or constitutional or statutory bodies such as the CAG, the Election Commission, CBI, etc.

They must all be suborned to his will, for he has a self-appointed duty to “protect Hindus”. His followers go about their duty to detect ‘anti-Hindutva/anti-nationals’ who post on Facebook, Twitter or are about to crack jokes against him and his government. MPs and ministers tell the police who to arrest or tell their constituents ‘goli maro salon ko’. Ministers’ sons go about in convoys that can mow down protesters, for the sons, too, are above the law. You might say their ‘sense of duty’ is scary. But wait, there are even more committed ones — the Hindu Yuva Vahini and our Dharma gurus. They take their duties seriously and have taken a pledge to fulfill them — by killing people.

This ‘sense of duty' can be very unsettling. These days, you never know when whose sense of duty can cause your untimely demise. Some people have taken upon themselves the duty of protecting ‘gau mata’; as soon as they see a fellow ferrying a cow, they start to feel an extreme urge to do their duty, by lynching that fellow. You might have stored some marinated meat in your fridge to prepare a fine dish of biryani, but then some neighbour of yours decides to check your fridge out of a keen sense of duty. That, too, can result in your death.

Your daughter may be walking with a boy from her class after school. Members of ‘Ram Sene’, the self-appointed custodians of our morals, suddenly find an opportunity to do their duty. They thrash the young boy and molest the girl, just to teach them a lesson in Hindutva morality.

The same gangs want Hindu girls to dress modestly — of course, as per their definition of modest — but if a Muslim girl should wear the hijab as part of her uniform and modest dressing, no, that’s not acceptable. Their ‘sense of duty’ gets aroused. The leader has set an aspirational goal for the country ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’. But seen in the new light of Karnataka, it seems we must take the first part as a warning — save your girls, if you can, from our fringe outfits — and the second part as a challenge — send your girls to college and see what happens!

There are so many full-time devotees of Lord Ram in our land, and they feel it their duty to force everyone, particularly Muslims and Christians, to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. May lightning strike him dead if he refuses to chant. Otherwise, the young men, driven by their ‘sense of duty’, will first cut off his beard, then his hair, and then rip off his clothes and parade him naked, beating him with sticks and roads all along the route.

There are young men in UP who have been told it is their duty to detect Hindu girls who have married a Muslim boy. With their network of gully Bajrangis, they go around scouting for offenders of faith. Once the culprit is found, they, along with the ever so dutiful policemen of that state, harass the girl to divorce her husband. And the police file it away as one more complaint of ‘Love Jihad’ resolved.

Some policemen in UP have shown an even greater ‘sense of duty’ in ‘encountering’ a few thugs unfavourable to the ruling party or in hurriedly burying the body of a girl who was gang-raped. Because protecting the state’s honour and the good reputation of their Chief Minister is their duty. Their alacrity and dedication to duty are now being emulated by policemen in other states.

In civil services, particularly in the IAS and IPS, there is something called the ‘Gujarat model’ of doing your duty. That is to work like karyakartas of a party rather than officials of the Government of India who have taken oath on the Constitution. And they are amply rewarded for this. A Joint Director of the ED, who has diligently done his duty of raiding Opposition leaders as and when required by the bosses, can take voluntary retirement early and be given a ruling party ticket to contest elections the very next day. Or, a Gujarat cadre IPS officer can be shifted to Delhi cadre and given an extension on the day of his retirement and made the Police Commissioner of Delhi. Do your duty, get rewards, show even more loyalty.

We live in bewildering times when the fantasies of both George Orwell and Lewis Carrol come true – and simultaneously. One should be shy of one’s rights and beware of others’ duties.

(The writer is a former Cabinet Secretariat official)