Hinduism and Human Rights

Hindu scholar Mark Juergensmeyer begins an essay on "Dharma and the Rights of Untouchables" with the statement: "If by 'human rights' one means minority rights, then Hindu society can be said to have a human rights tradition, for it has always had a way of incorporating the poor and socially ostracized into the social whole."¹ The caste system can be understood as a reflection of dharma or "the moral order" in Hindu society, which at its best maintains "reciprocal relationships of mutual economic and social benefit. Each group respects the rights and dignity of the others."² Of course, as Juergensmeyer acknowledges, the reality has very often been otherwise. 

On the other hand, Kana Mitra argues that traditional codes of conduct in the Hindu tradition are on their face contrary to human rights. Manu's Dharma Sutra, which is considered authoritative in this regard, relates all rights to duties specified by caste, age, and sex. Traditional rights then are privileges of status and position. However, for twenty-five hundred years there have been rebellions within the Hindu tradition against its hierarchical order, and today many Hindus believe Manu's code needs revision.

Manu uses the Sanskrit word adhikara to describe the notion of a just claim or right; however, only Brahmans have such rights. Thus, deriving a notion of human rights within the Hindu tradition requires turning to the general concept of duty, or dharma, which is central to the Dharma Sutras. Mitra writes: "Dharma implies justice and propriety as does the word 'right' of the U.N. Declaration, although the connotation of a 'just claim' is not explicitly present."³

The revolts against traditional Hinduism reinterpret dharma. For instance, some bhakti groups assert:

All humans are equal as God's creation but are not the same; therefore, all should give and receive according to their own nature. These groups uphold the idea of following one's own nature (svadharma) as advocated in the Bhagavad-Gita.⁴

The various vedanta groups within Hindu orthodoxy also hold that one should follow one's own nature to realize perennial truth. Mitra argues, "They uphold human rights on the basis of all human beings having the same essence."⁵ Humans may be potentially divine, but may not have realized this potentiality. Thus, while asserting essential nonduality, most vedanta schools also embrace Manu's rules of conduct for life in this world.⁶

In addition to these ancient reinterpretations of Hindu tradition, Western notions of individual rights have entered Indian society, initially through British law and education. There have been many efforts to combine modern notions of rights with Hindu notions of rights and duties. Rammohan Roy, founder of the Brahmo Samaj movement, advocated equality for all persons regardless of caste or sex, on the basis that all humans are God's creatures. Vivekananda, leader of the Ramakrishna movement, supported equality on the basis of vedanta thought and thus did not, like Roy, reject Manu. "Rabindranath Tagore is another influential name in the human-rights movement."⁷

Most of those who led the independence movement in India sought some accommodation between Western notions of individual rights and the Hindu tradition of duty and caste. The Indian Constitution, largely drafted by B. R. Ambedkar, who was an untouchable, abolished untouchability and affirmed individual civil and political rights. Legislation was even passed to reserve places in government and schools for untouchables. The caste system itself, however, was left intact.

John Carmen notes that the Indian Constitution guarantees more rights than the American Bill of Rights. The preamble speaks of securing "the dignity of the individual" and sections which follow it include: "Right to Equality," "Right to Freedom," Right against Exploitation," "Right to Freedom of Religion," "Cultural and Educational Rights," "Right to Property," and "Right to Constitutional Remedies."⁸ Clearly, many of these rights directly challenge the system of unequal privileges that is fundamental to the Hindu tradition of caste.

Carmen argues that although the Indian Constitution contains an impressive list of fundamental rights, "it does not ground them in anything, whether in individual human nature, the requirements of human community, or the creative intention of God."⁹ In short, "the constitution does not recognize the fundamental dharma affirmed by the Hindu tradition and sets no spiritual obligation for the state itself or for the people."¹⁰

In the face of persisting untouchability in India despite these efforts to eradicate it, reformers who turn again to the notion of dharma

have found in the ancient Indian concept the basis for ideas that are quite similar to those of socially sensitive Westerners, and yet are rooted in the Indian religious tradition. In short, they have discovered dharmic reforms appropriate to the modern world.¹¹

For example, members of the Arya Samaj movement have argued that the original Vedic teachings are casteless and thus have fashioned "a notion of dharma based on universal, rather than caste-specific, obligations to social values."¹²

Mitra writes that "Mahatma Gandhi is the epitome of the human-rights movement within traditional Hinduism," for his "fight for the rights of the untouchables was based on his ideas of human rights."¹³ Gandhi considered himself an orthodox Hindu. He believed that whether God is understood in theistic or nontheistic terms, Hindu theology could not be used to justify the unequal treatment of human beings. As Mitra affirms: "Theistic Hinduism upholds human equality on the basis that all are God's creatures. Nontheistic Hinduism emphasizes the identity of the essence of all humans."¹⁴

Gandhi included untouchables in his ashrams and movement. Yet, he accepted Manu's idea that rights and duties, one's dharma, are to be understood in terms of svadharma, one's natural situation in life. Mitra writes:

The idea of svadharma, if not understood as a rigid code or law, can be a contribution in the field of human rights in its suggestion that differences be taken seriously. Manu offers suggestions in taking it in a nonrigid way. Dharma, he says, is what "is followed by those learned of the Vedas and what is approved by the conscience of the virtuous who are exempt from hatred and inordinate affection." Tradition, conscience, and reason must all be consulted to determine the rights and duties of humans. Rights and duties of different people in different situations are different, but each human being deserves and should have equal consideration and concern.¹⁵

Gandhi was not advocating "individual rights" in the Western sense, but rather dharma: "an ethic of community, responsibility and loyalty."¹⁶

Gandhi's emphasis on tradition and duty are clear. When asked what he thought of the proposed Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he replied:

I learnt from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty well done. Thus, the very right to live accrues to us only when we do the duty of citizenship of the world. From this one fundamental statement, perhaps it is easy enough to define the duties of Man and of Woman and correlate every right to some corresponding duty to be first performed.¹⁷

His position, as always, was rooted in religious commitment rather than political expediency.

However, he did speak of learning "to stand up for human dignity and rights," and even affirmed that everyone "has an equal right to the necessaries of life. . .."¹⁸ Therefore, we might say that Gandhi affirmed human rights in the context of his Hindu tradition:

If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek. If leaving duties unperformed, we run after rights, they will escape us like a will o' the wisp. . .. The same teaching has been embodied by Krishna in the immortal words: "Action alone is thine. Leave thou the fruit severely alone." Action is duty, fruit is the right.¹⁹

While others have turned to the Bible or to the Qur'an to find justification for human rights, Gandhi turned within his own Hindu tradition to the sacred text of the Bhagavad-Gita.

Gandhi's legacy includes a multitude of movements for social change within India that emphasized swaraj or self-rule. "The Indian human rights movement grew out of this tradition of autonomous social organization and is linked to other social movements, many also of Gandhian inspiration, both through shared personnel and because the victims of human rights violations are often activists in those movements."²⁰ Barnett concludes that, given the caste tradition and all the problems of Indian society, any success of human rights protection in India "is a strong argument for the potential universality of the movement."²¹

R. C. Pandeya, too, stresses that for the Indian all rights are derived from duties, and thus he suggests that the first principle of human rights is buried in Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible."²²

In Hindu philosophy this notion of duty follows from the nature of man and may be articulated in two ways:

Negatively formulated, it will state that a man ought not to act in such a way as to obscure his true nature. In other words his duty would consist in withdrawing or refraining from all such acts as were likely to obscure any aspect of the totality of his being. The same idea formulated in positive terms would amount to saying that man ought to act in order to fulfill his total nature. In this alternative formulation his duty would consist in a complete knowledge of self.²³

These two different emphases in the formulation of duty lead to a fork in the road in Indian philosophy: the path of renunciation, represented by Buddhism, and the path of realization of being as being, as represented by vedanta.

Pandeya argues that both of these paths are reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

The Declaration, with its emphasis on freedom and equality of men and the consequent denunciation of distinctions contrary to the basic spirit of equality and freedom, represents a highly balanced blending of the two paths mentioned above. This is a philosophical tribute to the thoughtfulness and wisdom of the framers of the Declaration.²⁴

The Declaration "reaches almost to the combined goal of Buddhism and Vedanta," he claims, but because of constraints in the modern world the Universal Declaration fails to specify the duties that generate human rights.²⁵

The danger of this approach is that traditional Hindu notions of duty include justifications for violence. Gandhi read the Bhagavad Gita from the epic Mahabharata as an allegory, but literally it calls members of the warrior (ksatriya) caste to do their duty by fighting on the battlefield. They are to leave the consequences of their killing to God. Moreover, the Gita makes violence easier by affirming that the soul cannot be killed: "he who slays, slays not; he who is slain, is not slain."²⁶

Today, advocates of Hindu nationalism readily justify violence in the name of their religious and cultural traditions. The Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Patriotism Organization) destroyed a mosque in Avodhya in 1992, and this precipitated violence throughout India between Hindus and Muslims. The RSS, as it is generally known, claimed the right to destroy the mosque because the site was originally a place sacred to the god Rama, although there is no historical evidence to substantiate this claim. More recently Hindu nationalists have attacked Christians and Muslims in their effort to create a purified "Hindustan" (Hindu society).

Clearly, modern concepts of human rights are a reflection of Western influence and interfere with traditional notions of dharma.²⁷ Yet, some Hindu reformers seek to interpret dharma in ways that support the notion of human rights. This is not easily done. Perhaps this is why the Indian constitution sets forth the major human rights affirmed in the Universal Declaration without providing any philosophical foundation for them. Nonetheless, at the time of India's independence "most educated Hindus not only accepted these fundamental rights but insisted that they expressed age-old Hindu principles."²⁸

*Revised material from Faith in Human Rights: Support in Religious Traditions for a Global Struggle (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1991).

by Robert Traer