Constitution Day address: PM reminds people of Constitutional duties

President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Parliament House on Tuesday. (Express photo by Anil Sharma)

Making a distinction between seva (service) and duty, Modi said helping someone on the road is good and it is a service. “But if I follow traffic rules to see that no one is inconvenienced… that’s duty,” he said. In the same vein, he said that parents teaching mother-tongue to children is also a duty.

In a strong pitch for duties, Modi said, over the past seventy years the stress of policymakers had rightly been to make people aware of rights. “This was rightly so because for ages, a very large section of the people were deprived of rights.” He added: “Are we as serious about our duties as we are about our rights?”

Opposition MPs from Congress, TMC, DMK, the Left parties and others, parked themselves near the statue of Ambedkar in Parliament complex in protest.

As per protocol, Leader of the Opposition in both Houses were also to be present at the dais but both Ghulam Nabi Azad and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury were absent when Vice President Venkaiah Naidu mentioned their names while opening his address.

Naidu said that fundamental duties should be included in the school curriculum and the list of the duties should be displayed at educational institutions and other public places. “Unless each one of us performs one’s duty, the rights of others cannot be realised,” he said.

President Kovind said that rights and duties were two sides of the same coin. “…if someone misconstrues the meaning of the freedom of speech and expression and is about to damage some public property, then another, who prevents him from indulging in such an act of violence and anarchy will be seen as a dutiful citizen,” he said.