When Mahatma Gandhi was requested to provide a message for a conference on human rights, Gandhiji said that the message should first be taken for human duties before taking for human rights. Obviously, rights and duties have to go together. Certainly, one cannot lay claims for right, if he would not match it with a dutiful attitude.
In recent times, with so much clamour about the importance of human rights , there is need to clarify as to what is human right violation.
In simple terms, it can be said that human right violation would occur for a person if he would not get what is assured and guaranteed to him by the constitution of the country. The constitution of India guarantees certain rights and privileges to the individual citizen and if they would be denied , certainly it can be considered as incident of human right violation.
However, it may not be entirely correct to interpret human right in terms of the constitutional provisions alone. The clauses of the constitution and the rules and regulations in force in the country do not meet the requirement of every situation and this is why there are so many disputes referred to the judiciary and that lead to the interpretation of the rule of law and the provisions of the constitution.
Generally, the unlawful arrests of the individuals by the government and the police and confinement of the people in prison without adequate justification and use of third degree methods by the police are brought under the ambit human right violation.
While such acts are certainly violation of human right, in explaining the ambit of the human right violations, one also has to go by the natural laws and the issues relating to the human dignity. In all human right violation issues, it would inevitably be found that one person would have violated either the legislative law or the natural law and consequently another person would have suffered resulting in his human right being violated. Many of such human right violation take place due to offences which we normally call as economic offence or social offence. It is high time that we redefine the term human right violation by including acts of corruption and social offences.
Every issue of corruption and social offence in public and private transaction should legitimately be considered as the violation of human right, whatever may be the way that the law of the land describes it.
If a person would buy rice or wheat from a ration shop and if it would be under weighed or contaminated, it can be called as human right violation. In this case, the government is the violator and the human right of consumer is violated and he is cheated. If a lady walking on the road would be subjected to teasing by rowdies, her human right is violated and she is humiliated , though the law may describe this as social offence.
With this interpretation, one can be sure that thousands of human right violation take place in India everyday.
The solution for this grim issue can be brought about only by elevating the quality of leadership in the country to a superior level. Great personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri built high standards for the youth and the country men to emulate . Unfortunately, India is unable to find people of such standards in public life today. The net result is increasing human right violation and consequent turbulence in the Indian society.
N S Venkataraman