"The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this

day. " -Ayn Rand

One of the major questions that has baffled mankind since beginning is, "Who came first? Chicken or Egg?" Equally uneasy and unclear is the relationship between individual rights and duties towards the society. Rights of an individual and his duty towards society are enmeshed in an intricate web of legality and philosophy coupled with dollops of pragmatism. Rights are legal, social & ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory. On the other hand, duty is an act or a course of action that is required of one by position, social custom, law, or religion. The concept of rights and duties and their constant tussle with each other isn't new nor will it change soon, rather it represents the basis of mans intellectual thought and understanding regarding his role in the civilization that he has established. A right without an attendant responsibility is as unreal as a sheet of paper which has only one side.

As Alfred the Great put it, "What ye will that other men should not do to you, that do ye not to other men." The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.' Take, for example, the right to religious expression. This right ensures that members of religious minorities are protected from interference in the exercise of their religious freedom; at the same time, it means that they must display the same tolerance when it comes to other religious practices that may differ from their own.

Contrary to what the title suggests, these two are not opponents, instead they are allies. There exists an intimate relation between externality, rights and duties. Externality when your actions affect the actions of the others. You have a right to a clean environment, but since you cant find a garbage can nearby you throw your trash on the road. Now this action of yours is affecting other people too. Here you could argue that a rational person will not do so. He will find a dustbin. But lets face it, majority of people we know will be too lazy to search for a bin. Thus there is an externality of laziness. Freedom involves individual responsibility. If one has a right to freedom of speech, one has a duty to speak decently and honestly, not inciting people to riot or to commit crimes. If one has a right to freedom of the press one has the duty to publish the truth, temperatelynot abusing

this freedom for personal advantage or vengeance. If one is entitled to rights, one has the duty to support the public authority that protects those rights. The biggest disadvantage in India is that most of the people are not even aware of their rights. When you dont demand, how can you expect anything in return! Before we expect everyone to realize their duties, its imperative that we make them aware of their rights. One of the good ways is to get the under-privileged aware of their rights and the privileged ones aware of their duties. Coming to an overall consequence of the tussle, a dangerous byproduct is a profound attitudinal change in society which makes people demand more and more and contribute less and less. Although this is not an intrinsic evil, the pursuit of rights becomes self defeating when it is unaccompanied by the commitment to duties. These demands come not only from the poor and the underprivileged, but also from privileged academic, bureaucratic, social and business groups accompanied by a deafening silence on the question of individual responsibility. Systems of social organization that give equal priority to both the community and the individual tend to emphasize the dual nature of rights as both freedoms and duties. Society as a whole can only thrive when everyone fulfills his or her obligations to their fellow citizens.