Swaran Singh Committee

Topic: Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The Swaran Singh Committee was a committee that the Congress party set up in 1976, during the Emergency (1975-77), to suggest changes to the Constitution. It recommended a list of eight fundamental duties for citizens. It matters because its report led the 42nd Amendment, 1976, to add Part IVA (Article 51A), the only place in the Constitution that lists citizens' duties.

Explanation

Why the committee was formed

• The original Constitution of 1950 had no list of duties. Its makers expected the citizens of free India to do their duties willingly.
• In 1976, during the Emergency (a period when many Fundamental Rights were suspended), the Congress party set up the Swaran Singh Committee.
• Its job was to suggest changes to the Constitution. One of its main suggestions was a written list of citizens' duties.

What it recommended

• Eight fundamental duties for every citizen.
• Penalties: Parliament could make laws to punish citizens who did not perform their duties.
• No court challenge: these penal laws could not be challenged in court for violating Fundamental Rights.
• A duty to pay taxes.

What the 42nd Amendment did with the report

• It accepted the main idea:
• It created a new Part IVA, which has only one article, Article 51A.

• It added ten duties, clauses (a) to (j). That is two more than the committee asked for.

• It dropped two proposals:

• Penalties for not performing duties, and the shield against court challenge.

• The duty to pay taxes. So paying taxes is not a fundamental duty.

• Later addition: the 86th Amendment, 2002, added the eleventh duty, clause (k). Under it, a parent or guardian must give their child aged 6-14 the chance to be educated [1].

Limits of the duties that came from it

• Citizens only: the duties apply to citizens, not to foreigners.
• Non-justiciable: a court cannot directly enforce them, and the Constitution gives no enforcement mechanism (no built-in way to make people follow them).
• Rights do not depend on duties: a citizen keeps their Fundamental Rights even if they fail to perform a duty. Class 11 NCERT says adding the duties "has not changed the status of our fundamental rights".

In the Constitution and practice

• Where it sits: Part IVA, Article 51A, inserted by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, and later amended by the Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 [1].
• Source of the idea: the Soviet (USSR) constitution, which listed citizens' duties next to their rights.
• Wider support for the idea:
• UDHR Article 29(1): "Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible" [3].

• Indian tradition (Class 7 NCERT): rajadharma (the king's duty to protect the people and rule justly) and Kautilya's saptanga (the "seven limbs" of the state, each with its own duties).

• The list survived the end of the Emergency:

• The Janata government's 44th Amendment (1978) kept the duties.

• The 86th Amendment (2002) extended them. The same amendment also inserted Art. 21A and changed Art. 45.

• Follow-up in practice: Justice J.S. Verma Committee:

• Set up in July 1998 to work out how to teach fundamental duties to citizens [2].
• Gave an interim report in January 1999 [2].

• It chose awareness over punishment: school curricula, teacher education, the civil services, the media, and elected representatives from the panchayat to Parliament [2].

• NCERT slip: Class 11 NCERT still says there are ten duties. There are eleven since 2002.

Don't confuse with

• 42nd Amendment, 1976: the committee recommended 8 duties, and the amendment added 10. Exam options often swap these numbers.
• Justice J.S. Verma Committee (1998): it did not create the duties. It suggested how to teach and spread awareness of duties that already existed [2].
• Source of the Directive Principles: the DPSPs come from the Irish constitution (1937). The fundamental duties come from the USSR constitution.
• 86th Amendment, 2002: it added the 11th duty, 51A(k). The Swaran Singh Committee had nothing to do with clause (k).

Prelims Hooks

• Swaran Singh Committee (1976), set up by the Congress party during the Emergency, recommended 8 duties. "The committee suggested ten" is a trap.
• The 42nd Amendment (1976) inserted Part IVA, Article 51A with 10 duties. Article 51A was not in the original 1950 Constitution.
• Committee proposals dropped by Parliament: penalties for not performing duties, and a duty to pay taxes. Paying taxes is not a fundamental duty.
• 86th Amendment (2002) added the 11th duty, 51A(k): parents or guardians must educate children aged 6-14.
• Source of the duties is the USSR constitution. The DPSPs come from the Irish constitution.
• Fundamental duties apply to citizens only and are non-justiciable.

Mains Points

• Born during the Emergency:
• Critics say a Congress committee stressed citizens' duties at a time when the State was cutting their freedoms.

• Supporters reply that the list itself is uncontroversial. The Janata government's 44th Amendment (1978) kept it, and the 86th Amendment (2002) extended it.

• Why dropping the penalty proposal was right:

• Making rights depend on duties would weaken Part III (the Fundamental Rights).
• Penal laws that no court could check would have taken away judicial review (the courts' power to strike down unconstitutional laws).

• Indian tradition, UDHR Art. 29 [3] and Rajendra Prasad's call for "great moral regeneration" link freedom to responsibility. They do not make freedom conditional on it.

• Education over enforcement: the duties have no punishment of their own. The Verma Committee (1998-99) chose awareness through schools, teacher training, the civil services, the media and elected representatives [2]. Duties work best through ordinary laws and civic education, not through policing citizens.

Related concepts

• Fundamental duties
• Duty to abide by the Constitution
• Duty to defend the country
• Duty to promote harmony
• Duty to protect the environment
• Scientific temper

Read more

• Fundamental Duties: origin and content