The evolution of a democratic society is centred around the expansion of rights — civil, political, economic and cultural, leading to the empower­ ment of people. Democratic nations respect individual and group rights for moral and instrumental reasons. Duties, both legal and moral, are cherished in order to reinforce those rights. The obligations of the individual to the collective must be understood in that context; rights and duties complement each other, just as res ­ ponsibility comes with freedom. Prime Minister Naren­ dra Modi sought to suggest a dichotomy between the rights and duties of citizens when he said last week that the country had wasted a lot of time “fighting for rights” and “neglecting one’s duties”. His speech was not the first time that he or other Hindutva protagonists hav e called for a foregrounding of duties over rights. Service and the sacrifices of nameless and faceless nation­buil­ ders have formed the bedrock of the modern Indian Re­ public, but their sacrifices were indeed for rights, digni­ ty and autonomy. Any notion of rights and duties being adversarial or hierarchical is sophistic. The Indian Con­ stitution enshrines equality and freedom as fundamen­ tal rights, along with the right against exploitation, free­ dom of religion, cultural and educational rights, and the right to constitutional remedies. The deepening of Indian democracy has led to an expansion of rights — education, information, privacy, etc. are now legally guaranteed rights. The state’s fidelity to these righ ts is tenuous at best. Citizens are generally duty­bound to protect the integrity and the sovereignty of the country, and this is true for India though there is no conscrip ­ tion. Other constitutional duties expected include a du­ ty to promote harmony and brotherhood, and to deve­ lop scientific temper, humanism and a spirit of inquiry. Any shift in state policy emphasis from rights to du ­ ties will be absurd and a disservice to many for whom the realisation of even fundamental rights is still a work in progress. An enlightened citizenry is critical to pro­ gress and good governance. But duty is not something that the citizens owe to the state. The obligation of indi­ vidual citizens to the collective pursuit of a natio n can be meaningful when their rights are guaranteed by the state. The citizen has a right to use a public road, and a duty to obey traffic rules. The right and the duty are meaningful only in conjunction. The Prime Minister’s comments come against this backdrop — formal and in­ formal restrictions on the rights of citizens are on the rise along with coercive powers of the state. The em­ phasis on duty along with the de­emphasis of rights al­ so raises the spectre of a descent into pre­Republican norms in social relations. The celebration of India as a traditionally duty­driven society carries with it the ines­ capable connotation of an exploitative division of la­ bour and norms that are antithetical to constitution al­ ism. Needless to say, that is not progress