“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. […] Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.” Eleanor Roosevelt
The milestone document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948. brings home to us the awareness of the inalienable human rights which every person is entitled as human beings – regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
The theme for 2020 is: Recover Better- Stand up for Human Rights!
Right to life, as a fundamental human right, includes a life free from diseases or the right to enjoy a wholesome life. In this Covid pandemic season, it is urgent that people’s human rights are respected and promoted without discrimination.
It is known that “this pandemic has been fuelled by deepening poverty, rising inequalities, structural and entrenched discrimination, and other gaps in human rights protection.” (https://www.un.org/en/observances/human-rights-day)
Therefore, the UN calls upon all world bodies, governments, institutions, private sector, NGOs, national and village bodies and all persons to give attention to the following:
- End discrimination of any kind. Equality and non-discrimination are the core requirements of a post-Covid world.
- Address ‘inequality pandemic’ by promoting and protecting economic, social and cultural rights with a stress on a new social contract.
- Encourage participation and solidarity. Stress the need for governments, civil society, private sector and grassroots communities to hold hands together to prepare to hand over a better post-Covid world to future generation and help vulnerable sections to recover with confidence and hope.
- Promote sustainable development for people and planet.
It is important to note the words of Eleanor Roosevelt that our human rights actions should begin nearer home base. From home kitchen to Prime Minister’s kitchen cabinet, from grass roots to the President’s desk, from village councils to the conscience of the judicial officers, from factories to premises of priests and pundits, etc. humans rights need to be respected and promoted.
A government, that cannot respect human and constitutional rights of its citizens and makes anti-people laws that send the citizens into a convulsive coma, needs to be shown the door.
When a government, that should be protector of the rights of people, becomes a predator by incarcerating human rights activists and human rights advocates under anti-people laws, it stifles people’s voice and tramples upon people’s human rights.
When a government does not want to listen to people’s call for their rights but retaliates their move with water cannons in extreme cold winter, not sparing even senior citizens, barricades them with deep trenches on public utility highways, it exposes its authoritarian claws that dismember and destroy human rights values and principles.
Legislations need to be value-oriented and principle-based. They are meant to promote people’s progress and not to cater to the needs and whims of a particular group or a community or a political faction. Right to equality is a fundamental right. When governments which derail people’s rights by promoting anti-people acts and laws, it is a violation of people’s human and fundamental rights.