Droupadi Murmu call to widen human rights ambit

Indian President makes a fervent appeal that humans must learn to treat nature and biodiversity with dignity and respect

Droupadi Murmu: File picture

TT  Legal Correspondent   |   New Delhi   |  11.12.22  : President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday said “human rights” should be redefined to include nature or else the poor countries would have to pay a heavy price in the form of natural disasters and climate change.

Addressing an event hosted here by the National Human Rights Commission to mark Human Rights Day, Murmu made a fervent appeal that humans must learn to treat nature and biodiversity with dignity and respect.

Human Rights Day is observed to commemorate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The theme of this year’s Human Rights Day is “Dignity, Freedom, and Justice for All”.

This is close to the ideals expressed in the Preamble to India’s Constitution, Murmu said.

“I have said before that we should strive to expand the notion of justice. Over the past few years, the world has suffered from a high number of natural disasters caused by unusual weather patterns. Climate change is knocking on the doors. People in the poorer nations are going to pay a heavier price for the degradation of our environment. We must consider the environmental dimension of justice now,” she said.

She said challenge of climate change was so enormous that it forced humans to redefine rights.

“Five years ago, as you know, Uttarakhand High Court held that the Ganga and the Yamuna have the same legal rights as human beings. But why stop at only two rivers? India is a land of sacred geography, with countless holy lakes, rivers and mountains. To these landscapes, the flora and fauna add rich biodiversity.”

“So, just as the concept of human rights exhorts us to consider every human being as no different from us, we should treat the whole living world and its habitat with respect.” 

“I wonder what would the animals and trees around us tell us if they could speak. What would our rivers say about human history and what would our cattle say on the topic of human rights? We have trampled on their rights for long and now the results are before us. We must learn — rather re-learn — to treat nature with dignity. This is not only a moral duty; let us remember it is necessary for our own survival too.

“That is why developing sensitivity and sympathy is the key to promoting human rights. It is essentially an exercise of the faculty of imagination. If we can imagine ourselves in the place of those who are treated as less than human, it will open our eyes and compel us to do the needful. You might have heard of the socalled ‘golden rule’, which says: Treat others as you would like them to treat you. That sums up the human rights discourse beautifully,” the President said.