Kartavya Path parades duties-first diktat, U-turns on rights

Noted mythologist, Devdutt Pattanaik, tweeted on the morning of September 6: “When the king is lazy, he focuses less on his raj-marga and puts spotlight on your kartavya-patha.”

The tweet, a day after the Centre renamed Rajpath and Central Vista lawns stretching from the Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate in Delhi as Kartavya Path, was not unexpected from a scholar who is also master of sarcasm. It also, offered a perspective on the real intent of the ‘king’ implied in the tweet, although I will contest the use of the ‘lazy’ adjective. This regime can be accused of much, but certainly not inertia or idleness.

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On possibly the most symbolic of avenues of the increasingly-under-internal-threat Republic from those constitutionally bound to protect it, the renomenclature marks the culmination of a long campaign waged by the regime’s highest — to prioritise duties over citizens’ rights. Known as King’s Way in the colonial era, the road between India Gate and the Rashtrapati Bhavan, it was appropriately renamed as Rajpath by a government of free India that was keen on establishing the end of imperial rule over India. The renaming now is indicative of desire to have a personal stamp on every legacy.

The decision glosses over the fact that governments must not lose opportunity to emphasise that it practises Rajdharma, the principle Atal Bihari Vajpayee immortalised in the Indian political lexicon in the weeks following Gujarat riots in 2002. If at all the road had to be renamed, it should have been Rajdharma Marg to underscore the government’s commitment to honour obligations towards citizens and not the other way around.

By renaming Rajpath that is the venue of the annual Republic Day parade as Kartavya Path, this government has given primacy to citizens’ performing their fundamental duties first and only thereafter raise the issue of basic rights and them being either denied or taken away.

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With this decision, the government has unambiguously put the cart before the horse – that only by performing duties does a proper environment for ‘enjoyment of Fundamental Rights’ get created. It is worrisome that this development has been preceded by steady erosion of rights of vulnerable sections of society and concerted attacks on many including the minorities.

The implied meaning of the sustained campaign has been that accountability is not for the State and  blame for ‘failure’ lies solely with the citizenry. The renaming formally marks the steady inversion of the fundamental characteristics of the Republic.

The Sangh Parivar has campaigned for long that  ‘rights and duties’ are “two sides of the same coin”. Anxieties over the campaign was stoked further by explicit focus on “observance of the Fundamental Duties mentioned in the Constitution by the citizens”.

These in fact, were the words used by the former President, Ram Nath Kovind in his last address to the nation on the eve of Republic Day this year. What was more worrisome, was that he virtually paraphrased words of Prime Minister Narendra Modi made earlier. It continued the trend established during the Kovind presidency of the First Citizen quoting and endorsing the prime minister and not the other way around that would have been more appropriate. Kovind had also thanked Modi publicly at an event in his village in Kanpur district, for the latter making him the President.

It needs to recalled that eleven ‘duties’ were questionably listed in Article 51(A) of the Constitution by Indira Gandhi as part of the 42nd Amendment during Emergency when Fundamental Rights were suspended. Thereafter, this section was never repealed possibly because of ‘righteousness’ of the idea.

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For a regime that constantly recalls ‘excesses’ during Emergency to resort to using a legislative change made by Indira Gandhi, to further its agenda is indeed paradoxical, if not incongruous. The noted academic and legal scholar Faizan Mustafa had however written that when she introduced the Fundamental Duties in the Constitution, it had been in “a non-binding Directive Principles chapter rather than in the justiciable fundamental rights chapter”. This is being revered in practice by this regime.

The government decision to rename the centrepiece of the contentious Central Vista project which has been rocked by numerous controversies, mainly for the brazen manner in which it was kick-started and executed by the government during the pandemic, comes as an important development in the steady RSS-isation of the country.

From the time young Hindu males, and the limited number of women enrolled into the few affiliated organisations open for them, join the RSS, they are first taught their responsibilities and duties as swayamsevaks. From the beginning, swayamsevaks are taught to be dutiful; without questioning decisions they are asked to follow or obey.

However, while it is perfectly fine for the RSS, which is a private organisation, to demand for selflessness from members who are pursuing the same ideological or political goals, asking this from citizens by renaming the prime avenue in the capital indicates the current regime’s keenness to abdicate its responsibility and quash civil rights.

There were indications of what was to come in a speech Modi delivered at an event organised by the Brahma Kumaris in January. He had stated that a “malaise has afflicted our society, our nation and all of us”.

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India was handicapped, he suggested, because people had “turned away from our duties and did not give them primacy”. He said, “In the last 75 years, we only kept talking about rights, fighting for rights and wasting (sic) 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.”

In this year’s independence day speech also Modi included fulfilling duties as one of the five pledges. He said that  every citizen (elected representatives too) must maintain discipline and discharge one’s duties.

Kovind too in his endorsement had asked for “discharging duties in the next 25 years”. With the decision to rename Rajpath, till the time this regime remains in power, people will literally and figuratively walk the pathway of duties, at least while navigating the so-called Amrit Kaal.

(Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is a NCR-based author and journalist. His latest book is The Demolition and the Verdict: Ayodhya and the Project to Reconfigure India. His other books include The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right and Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. He tweets at @NilanjanUdwin)

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