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NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 12 –160Rights and Duties: Two Sides of the Same Coin — LET’S EXPLORE

Book page 159 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Ravi decides not to join a protest march at school because he disagrees with it. Some classmates say they will exclude him from their group unless he joins.
Answer

Right involved: Ravi’s right to freedom — the freedom of speech and expression (Article 19). The chapter says this right “allows people to express themselves… and choose how they want to live.” Freedom of expression includes the freedom not to express something you do not believe. Nobody can be made to say what they do not think.

Duty being broken: by the classmates. The duty that matches the right to express opinions freely is “to listen to and respect other people’s views, even when I disagree, and to do so without causing harm.” Threatening to throw Ravi out of the group is precisely causing harm.

Be careful about what the problem is not: the classmates are perfectly entitled to hold their protest march — that too is freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. The wrong here is not the march. It is the coercion: making Ravi’s membership of the group conditional on giving up his own opinion. And exclusion on the ground of what someone thinks is a form of discrimination, which the chapter says creates a social barrier that hampers people from enjoying their fundamental rights.
Q2.
On School Culture Day, Rukmini wants to wear her family’s traditional dress from her village. Some students laugh at her and say she should wear ‘modern’ clothes instead.
Answer

Rights involved: the cultural and educational rights (Articles 29–30), under which communities can preserve their language, script and traditions; and the right to freedom, which lets people choose how they want to live. The chapter’s closing list is explicit: discrimination based on caste, religion, gender, personal preferences like choice of clothing, etc., is against fundamental rights.

Duties being broken: by the students who laugh —

  • Fundamental Duty 6 — preserve culture and heritage. A traditional dress from a village is that heritage.
  • Fundamental Duty 5 — promote harmony among all people and respect women.
What kind of discrimination this is: nobody stopped Rukmini from wearing the dress, so nothing visible has been denied to her. This is the invisible kind the chapter describes — “taking a jibe at somebody”. It is difficult to prove and hence difficult to penalise, which is exactly why it has to be stopped by the students themselves. And notice the irony of the occasion: laughing at a traditional dress on Culture Day defeats the point of the day.
Compare: in the chapter, two classmates who argued over language differences were encouraged by friends to learn phrases from each other’s languages — “showing unity in diversity”. That is the response Rukmini deserved: curiosity, not mockery.
Q3.
During the recess, some children were throwing chocolate wrappers on the playground, instead of the dustbin. The teacher then reminds them to keep their surroundings clean.
Answer

This one is a duty, not a right. It is Fundamental Duty 7 — protect and improve the environment and have compassion towards animals. Keeping your surroundings clean is listed in the chapter’s opening summary of duties as well: “obeying laws, paying taxes, keeping clean, and helping others.”

But there is a right hiding behind it. The right to life includes the right to live with dignity, and the chapter states that this covers livelihood, education, health, a clean environment, and fair treatment under the law. So a wrapper on the playground is a very small violation of everybody else’s right to a clean environment — including that of the children who threw it.

Why a teacher’s reminder is the right response: duties are moral and social responsibilities. We are expected to follow them, but not doing so may not always lead to legal action. There is no court for a chocolate wrapper. What there is, is the response the chapter shows in Green Park Colony, where residents cleared drains, swept streets, planted saplings and painted walls one Sunday morning — and the youngest participant explained it in one line: “It’s our duty to care for our neighbourhood.”
Q4.
In a mock youth parliament activity, students use a voting app to share their ideas for improving school facilities. Even those who live in remote areas are able to join in the discussion online.
Answer

This is the one positive situation in the list — it shows a right being exercised and a duty being fulfilled at the same time.

  • The right: freedom of speech and expression, and — more deeply — the ability to participate in the decision-making of the community, which is the chapter’s very definition of belonging to a political community.
  • The duty and the principle: inclusion. Distance was a barrier to participation; the voting app removed it. The chapter defines inclusion as making sure everyone feels accepted and supported, and says plainly that “it also means removing barriers to participation.”
Why this matters for democracy: a decision made by only the students who could reach the room is a decision that never heard from the students who live far away. The chapter’s closing line is exactly this — “Democracy is strengthened through enabling and facilitating participation of all.” The app did not create the right to be heard; it removed what was stopping the right from being used.
Notice: this is the third stage of the equality → equity → inclusion ladder. Nobody was given a box. The fence was taken down.
Q5.
Can we demand rights without doing our duties?
Answer

Legally, yes — but the demand becomes hollow. Both halves of that sentence matter, so take them one at a time.

The legal position, as the chapter states it. Rights are protected by law: if someone’s rights are violated, even by the government, they can go to court for help. Duties, on the other hand, are moral and social responsibilities — “we are expected to follow them, but not doing so may not always lead to legal action.” The chapter does not say your Fundamental Rights are switched off if you fail your Fundamental Duties. A person who litters does not thereby lose the right to a fair trial.

The practical position. Now look at what a right actually consists of:

My right to speak is worth something only if others carry the duty to listen instead of shouting me down.
My right to a clean environment is worth something only if others carry the duty to not throw wrappers on the ground.
My right to education is worth something only if adults carry the duty to send children to school instead of to work.
My right to be respected is worth something only if others carry the duty to respect people they find different.
Why it happens: every right is a claim on somebody else’s behaviour. If I demand my rights and refuse my duties, I am asking others to do for me what I will not do for them. That cannot be a rule for everybody at once — and a rule that cannot apply to everybody is not a principle, it is a privilege. This is why the chapter says rights and duties are not opposites but go together, and why it opens with Mahatma Gandhi: “The true source of rights is duty.”

The short answer to write: we can demand them, because the Constitution does not make our rights conditional on our duties — but we cannot enjoy them, because the duties of others are what our rights are made of.

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