Explained: What Fundamental Duties mean

Over last few days, the Prime Minister, President, Vice President and Law Minister have been stressing Fundamental Duties. A look at what these duties are, and how they were included in the Constitution.

Then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with commemoration volumes of the 25th anniversary of the Constitution. It was her government that introduced Fundamental Duties in 1976. (R K Sharma/Express Archive)

Over the last one week, the government has been making a pitch for fundamental duties. In his Constitution Day address to a Joint Session of Parliament last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed the importance of constitutional duties, while making a distinction between seva (service) and these duties. On the same occasion, President Ram Nath stressed the difference between rights and duties, while Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu called for fundamental duties to be included in the school curriculum and the list of the duties to be displayed at educational institutions and at other public places. Also on Constitution Day, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, writing in The Indian Express, called for citizens to remember their fundamental duties as they remember their fundamental rights.