UPSC Prelims 2017 · Question 72 of 99
UPSC Prelims 2017 question on Rights and Duties
- ExamUPSC CSE
- Year2017
- PaperGeneral Studies Paper I
- SubjectPolity
- TopicFundamental Rights
- DifficultyEasy
- TypeDirect
In the context of India, which one of the following is the correct relationship between Rights and Duties?
Show answer
Answer: A. Rights are correlative with Duties.
Verdict
The answer is that rights are correlative with duties.
Analysis
Rights are what we claim others should do for us, while duties are what we should do for others, so every right asserted by one person implies a corresponding obligation resting on others to respect it. The correlativity of rights and duties is therefore not a moral exhortation but a logical feature of what a right is. The second option severs rights from society, which is untenable since rights are claims recognised within a community. The third and fourth options each subordinate one to the other, whereas the constitutional scheme treats them as paired.
Source
NIOS material on Fundamental Rights and Fundamental Duties.
How to crack it
Test each option by asking whether a right could exist at all under it. A right that imposes no obligation on anyone is not a right but a wish, which disposes of the independence option immediately. Then note that the Indian constitutional design places Rights in Part III and Duties in Part IVA precisely to express this pairing, and that the Verma Committee examined operationalising duties, which is the usual follow up question.