Fundamental Rights

Two incidents triggered me to write about the fundamental rights. One a question in UPSC prelims paper2019. The question went like this “ which article of Indian Constitution gives you to right to marry the person of your choice?” . The second was the engaging trailer of the movie Article 15. The two articles mentioned in these incidents are fundamental rights.

Constitution of India talks about 6 fundamental rights. They arefundamental to have a dignified life, yet often violated.

The violations of fundamental rights in our country are so much that the authority and other people need to be reminded of these rights. When giving a reminder, it is effective to remind them through the violations of fundamental rights they made than mechanically listing down 6 fundamental rights.Hence here are the popular and inhuman violations of fundamental rights in our country.

1. Honour killings – violates Article 21 which is right to life including the right to marry the person of one’s choice.

2. Ban on menstruating women to enter certain places of worship like Sabarimala, mosques etc- violates Article 25 ( right to profess, propagate and practice religion).

3. Atrocities against minorities like Dadri lynching, events that led to the suicide of Dr. PayPal Tadvi – violates Article 15 ( neither the state nor a private party would discriminate individuals on the basis of caste, creed, sex, religion, descent or place of birth) and article 17 ( abolition of untouchability).

4. Various instances of human trafficking in the country – violates article 23 mandating the state to prevent all forms of exploitations like forced labour, human trafficking etc.

5. Armed forces' excess towards peaceful protests in colleges, streets – violates Article 19 which includes the right to peaceful protest.

6. Ban on NDTV by the central government for the publishing of what they called sensitive information- article 19 which also includes freedom of the press and media

7. Sedition charges against people, ban on books/paintings/ movies for unpopular views- violation of the right to freedom

8. Unequal pay for man and woman+ all the gender discriminations we face- violates Article 15

9. Arresting a person without disclosing the reason for arrest – article 20 which safeguards the rights of convicted persons is violated here.

10. Child labour- violates article 24

11. Private schools not following the quota formula for government and reserved seats- violates article 21A ( right to education)

Each time you come across these types of incidents, remember that it’s your fundamental rights getting violated. Raise your voice then and there because you have every right to do so. Let’s together make a world where these rights are meant to be protected and violated!!!!!!