Why rights matter

A constitution does not only organise government; it also limits government and ensures everyone enjoys certain rights. Part III of the Indian Constitution lists the Fundamental Rights and their limits. Over the decades, their scope has changed and in some ways expanded.

Two cases show why rights must be enforced:

• In 1982, contractors building flyovers and stadiums for the Asian Games in Delhi employed very poor workers in bad conditions, paying less than the minimum wage. Social scientists petitioned the Supreme Court, arguing that paying below the minimum wage amounts to begar (forced labour), a violation of the right against exploitation. The court agreed and ordered the government to ensure the workers got the prescribed wages.
• Machal Lalung of Assam was arrested at 23 and sent, as an undertrial, for treatment in a mental hospital. Though doctors declared him fit for trial, no one acted; he spent 54 years in custody without his case ever being heard, and was freed at 77 only after a team of the National Human Rights Commission intervened. The right to life and liberty includes the right to a fair and speedy trial; his case shows what happens when rights exist on paper but not in practice.

A bill of rights is a list of rights mentioned and protected in a constitution. It prohibits government from acting against individuals' rights and ensures a remedy if they are violated.

• From whom do rights protect us? From other persons or private organisations (so the government must protect us), and also from the organs of government themselves: the legislature, executive, bureaucracy or even the judiciary may violate rights.
• Indian leaders demanded rights from the British during the freedom struggle; the Motilal Nehru committee demanded a bill of rights as early as 1928. So it was natural to list them in the Constitution.
• (South Africa's 1996 Constitution has one of the widest bills of rights, including dignity, privacy, housing, health care, food, water and a healthy environment, enforced by a special constitutional court.)

Why 'fundamental'? These rights are so important that the Constitution lists them separately and specially protects them.

• Ordinary legal rights are protected by ordinary law and can be changed by the legislature through ordinary law-making. Fundamental Rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and can be changed only by amending the Constitution.
• No organ of government may violate them; the judiciary can declare executive or legislative actions illegal if they violate Fundamental Rights or restrict them unreasonably.
• But they are not absolute: the government can impose reasonable restrictions.

Example (new): a factory owner who locks workers in overnight violates their rights, and the state must stop it; a police officer who detains someone without cause violates rights too, and the courts can stop that.