Obligation means a condition to perform a duty or fulfil a requirement. Such a condition may arise mainly due to moral or legal compulsions, e.g. obligation to speak the truth or to fulfil a legal contract. Political obligation means obligation of citizens towards the constitution and the state, its orders, commands, rules and authority. At the day-to-day level, it relates to obeying the laws and rules of the State, paying taxes and other dues that the state reasonably seeks. However, there can be circumstances when political obligation erodes and resistance or revolt arises. These may include action of the State and its agencies or the ruling regime, which are inimical to the dignity, life, security and freedom of the citizens and their self-development.
Why should I obey the orders, commands, rules and authority of the State? As a citizen, what is expected of me? As a receiver of rights, what duties should I bear towards the State, its organs and institutions, the various symbols, insignia and emblems that represent the state? When do I get the right to resist the State? In short, how do I reconcile the requirements of supremacy of the State and my rights as a citizen? Does resisting the State amount to treason, harming national sovereignty or becoming an enemy of the State? When do resistance and revolution become justified? When and how my resistance to the orders of the State, its rules and commands is a resistance against national interest and when against a particular class or group interest? Discussion on political obligation requires revisiting these questions and establishing a relationship between political obligation, citizenship and legitimate authority.
Political obligation could be towards the state or against it. When the State is legitimate, there would be political obligation towards it and when the same is coercive and authoritarian or exploitative or colonial, there should be political obligation against it. Gandhiji’s Satyagraha, moral persuasion, entails obligation for resisting injustice, brute force and oppressive power of the state, as was the case with the colonial political order.
An authority is a legitimate power. Legitimacy of power comes when people follow the orders, the laws and the action of the state not merely due to its command or force but by willing allegiance. Power without willing obedience is brute force. An authority is legitimate so long as its actions are obeyed and its laws are followed not merely due to force and fear of punishment but primarily because of willingness and allegiance. As Hannah Pitkin says, ‘To call something legitimate authority is normally to imply that it ought to be obeyed…’1
Citizenship is a legally and constitutionally defined identity of each individual who has accepted the supremacy of the authority established by the constitution. Citizens are subjects of the legitimate authority flowing from the constitution and it requires their automatic political obligation, except when their life, security and dignity and their self-development is denied.
As soon as the authority looses its legitimacy, it lacks the claim for political obligation from citizens. At this stage, it may enforce political obligation through force but in this case, it would not be based on willing allegiance. If we ask Green, he will say ‘will, not force is the basis of the State’, and hence, political obligation based on force will be a contradiction in itself. Breakdown of legitimacy is breakdown of political obligation. The problem of political obligation relates to the question: when are the citizens entitled to resist the authority of the State? It means, when does one get the right to resist the State and its power or revolt against it? Can a citizen resist the state when it carries legitimate authority?
Some advocate unlimited political obligation of the individual and demand complete and unquestioned submission to the command of the State and the sovereign. They include the supporters of the doctrine of Force Majuere (obligation primarily because of supreme power of the state), doctrine of Divine Right (authority of the state as divinely ordained and its obedience is religious and moral duty) and doctrine of Raison d’etat (the reason of the State or its interests and ends are supreme in themselves). Idealists Hegel and Bosanquet, Conservatives Burke and Oakeshott and Contractualists Hobbes and Rousseau, all due to different reasons, advocated more or less full political obligation of individual to the authority of the State. On the other hand, Contractualist Locke, Utilitarian Bentham, Idealist Green and political Pluralists Laski, Barker, and others advocate limited political obligation. Anarchists and Marxists admit no political obligation towards the State in a class society.
In India, as the nationalist movement and the struggle for independence grew, the anti-colonial leaders and thinkers opposed any political obligation to the colonial state. Gandhiji’s Satyagraha and the revolt of the radical and socialist revolutionaries were resistance against colonial force, though motivation and nature of their resistance were different. Extremist position of Bal-Pal-Rai trio is an example of the right to resistance against the colonial state. However, there were moderate and liberal activists, Naoroji, Gokhale and Jinnah, who advocated a constitutional resistance.
In the Indian context, the colonial legacy of resistance continued after independence. We have revolts against the constitutional means and call for disobedience against the state in the form of Naxalite movements, and various ethnic and linguistic movements. Exhortation for Total Revolution (Sampoorna Kranti of Jai Prakash Narayan) and Seven Revolutions (Sapta Kranti of Ram Manohar Lohia) can be considered a call for limited obligation in the seventies. Such calls were a reaction to perceived situation that the constitution was being overstepped. In contemporary times, we have examples of resistance against the State’s developmental policies. These resistance movements advocate protecting the rights of the people to their habitation, surrounding and environment and oppose their displacement for construction of factories, dams, commercial complexes, etc. Do all these resistances form part of resistance against the State or are they merely resistance against a particular form of governmental policy? An analysis of the nature of resistance would help explore how resistance to particular policies or orders does not constitute resistance against the legitimacy of the State itself.
There may be resistance movements, which seek reforms without diluting the overall political obligation to the existing state. Movements waged by J. P. Narayan, R. M. Lohia, etc. are examples of intra-systemic movements that demonstrated resistance against a particular regime and not the state per se. It is said that J. P.’s movement was ‘a struggle against the very system which has compelled almost everybody to go corrupt.’2 The term ‘system’ here implies the prevailing contemporary political scenario and the regime. It did not oppose either the Constitution of the Republic of India nor the Indian State. These were attempts to bring changes while staying within the systemic framework.
There may be extra-systemic movements, which oppose the very logic of the state and seek to change the nature of the state and its authority. Naxalite movement in many parts of India can be cited as an example of extra-systemic movement. Besides, there is opposition to the authority of the state from various groups. Ethnic and religious groups have opposed the Indian state for either seeking more autonomy or complete independence posing themselves as autonomous or independent political entities. Secessionist movements in the Northeastern region (e.g. demand for Bodoland in Assam, independent Nagalim/Nagaland, etc.) and in Kashmir and previously in Punjab (e.g. demand for independent Khalistan) are examples of complete rejection of any political obligation to the state by individuals belonging to certain groups.
How could we differentiate between resistance to a particular regime or policy from resistance to the very constitution or the state? Why and how should we grade different resistance movements such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan, J. P.’s Total Revolution and Lohia’s Seven Revolutions, Punjab’s and Assam’s movements, Naxalite Movements and Terrorists threats? Probably, by classifying them into intra-systemic and extra-systemic and analysing their opposition and resistance in terms of government’s policy, regime’s ideology, the constitution and the state’s authority. Thus, we need to analyse and understand political obligation of individuals as citizens and citizens as belonging to different groups—ethnic, religious, linguistic, ideological and political.
Various grounds have been invoked in support of political obligation; e.g., Hegel’s state as a march of God, Machiavelli’s dictum that ends of the state justify it means3, Rousseau’s General Will, Locke’s consent as the basis of the state and the government, Green’s will and not force as the basis of the state, Bentham’s greatest happiness, etc., have been employed to provide legitimacy to the state and its actions. Citizens as the political constituent of the state carry rights and duties and uphold the laws of the state. Is right to resist a necessary condition for limited constitutional government? Does social movements and revolution mean breakdown of political obligation? We will address these issues to explore the grounds of political obligation and right to resist.
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