Human Rights in Indian Context

The concept of Human Rights in its expanding comprehension, has now travelled to encompass what are called "third generation" rights which includes : right to self determination, right regarded as belonging to people rather than individual, right to sovereignty over natural wealth and resources of the country and, right to development as well as rights of disadvantaged groups to special protection. Thus the road travelled by Human Rights movement has been historic and impressive.

Growing realization of governments, activists, elite, opinion builders and constitutionalists that constitutions of most of the nations believing in rule of law incorporate explicitly or implicitly the provisions of various International Covenants on Human Rights in one way or the other. For example, the Founding Fathers in India incorporated in the Constitution most of the rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration in two parts - the Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principle of State Policy that covered almost the entire field of Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The first set of rights enunciated in Article 2 to 21 of the Declaration and incorporated under the Fundamental Rights. Article 12 to 35 of the Constitution and the second set of rights enunciated in Article 22 to 28 of the Declaration are incorporated under Directive Principles - Article 36 to 51 of the Constitution. This led to the realization that Human Rights have a significant role to play in the national context.