The Indian Traditions: Comparing Western and Non-Western Views on Human Rights

Human rights are often presented as universal values that transcend cultural boundaries. Yet beneath this claim lies a fascinating tension between how different cultures understand the very nature of rights, duties, and human identity. The Western model that shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes individual freedoms, while non-Western traditions, particularly the Indian perspective, offer alternative frameworks centered on community, duty, and relational personhood. Understanding these differences enriches our grasp of human dignity and reveals important limitations in the current international system.

The primacy of the group vs. the individual
Rights-first vs. duty-first approach
The critique of unbridled individualism
Universality in principle vs. practice
Enriching international standards with non-Western perspectives

The primacy of the group vs. the individual

Western human rights doctrine places the individual at its core. This individualistic framework emerged from Enlightenment thinking, where philosophers like John Locke emphasized natural rights inherent to each person. In this view, the individual stands as an autonomous unit whose liberties must be protected from state interference.

Non-Western traditions, including Indian philosophy, take a fundamentally different approach. Here, the group-family, community, tribe-serves as the essential entity for realizing both individual and collective well-being. This perspective acknowledges that humans exist within multiple, interconnected identities. A person is not an isolated individual but someone defined by their relationships as parent, child, community member, and citizen.

Non-Western cultures often reflect a wider view of personhood, where relational terms like “father,” “mother,” or “community member” define who we are. The Western view, which treats individuals as separate biological entities with isolated concerns, contrasts sharply with this relational understanding. This doesn’t mean individual dignity matters less in non-Western traditions. Rather, it recognizes that individual flourishing happens within, not apart from, communal bonds.

Rights-first vs. duty-first approach

The Western human rights framework prioritizes claiming rights before performing duties. This rights-first approach treats duties as secondary obligations that may or may not follow from rights. The underlying assumption is that individuals possess inherent rights simply by virtue of being human, independent of any responsibilities they fulfill.

Indian tradition, exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy, inverts this relationship. Gandhi believed rights emerged from the fulfillment of dharma, or duty. When Julian Huxley, UNESCO’s Director-General, requested Gandhi’s thoughts on human rights for the Universal Declaration, Gandhi responded that all rights deserved and preserved come from duties well performed. In his view, rights cannot be divorced from duties; they are interdependent.

This duty-first framework draws from the concept of dharma in Hindu philosophy. Unlike Western rights that exist independently, Gandhi believed rights emerged from fulfilling one’s dharma. As he famously stated in a letter to UNESCO, all rights must flow from duties well performed. This perspective ensures that rights advocacy remains connected to ethical foundations and communal welfare rather than becoming self-serving.

The Indian approach isn’t merely theoretical. Indian thought finds it challenging to comprehend rights and duties as stand-alone concepts. The discomfort arises not from prioritizing duties over rights, but from the Western tendency to separate what Indian philosophy sees as inseparable. Rights and duties form an integrated whole where each reinforces the other.

The critique of unbridled individualism

Philosopher Raimon Panikkar offered one of the most profound critiques of Western individualism in human rights discourse. Panikkar distinguished between the “individual” and the “person”-a distinction that challenges fundamental Western assumptions about human identity.

According to Panikkar, an individual is an isolated knot, while a person is the entire fabric around that knot, woven from the total network of relationships. The individual represents merely an abstraction, a selected aspect of the person for practical purposes. In contrast, a person extends through their parents, children, friends, ideas, feelings, and belongings. As Panikkar explained, without the knots the net would collapse, but without the net, the knots would not exist.

This critique reveals a key problem with radical individualism: it treats humans as atomized units rather than relational beings. Rights cannot be individualized in this way because a person’s dignity can be violated through language or actions affecting their community, even when these don’t directly target them as isolated individuals. Aggressively defending individual rights may have unjust repercussions on others and potentially on oneself.

Panikkar argued that many modern problems stem from this emphasis on abstract individualism. A person-centric view embedded in family and society offers a more holistic foundation for human rights discourse. This doesn’t reject individual dignity but situates it within the web of relationships that actually constitute human existence.

Universality in principle vs. practice

Perhaps the most damaging contradiction in the Western human rights narrative lies in the colonial legacy. While Western nations championed universal human rights at the United Nations, they simultaneously denied these same rights to millions in their colonies.

Liberal democracies like France, Britain, and the United States acquired colonies through state-sanctioned violence. Colonized persons were designated as subjects with duties but few rights. The conquerors showed no awareness of any contradiction between their democratic institutions at home and violent colonial rule abroad.

This hypocrisy extended to international human rights instruments themselves. The European Convention on Human Rights initially included a colonial clause that limited application to European territories, explicitly excluding colonies. Though African delegates like Senghor successfully fought to remove this clause, the initial intent was clear: human rights for Europeans, not for colonized peoples.

Human rights became infused with colonial attitudes because exceptions excluding non-Europeans were built into philosophical treatises and government documents. The civic institutions administering human rights often had no intention of applying them universally, despite proclaiming inalienable rights for all. This historical reality challenges any claim that the Western model is inherently universal.

The irony runs deeper still. Human rights were linked to colonization itself before becoming tools of resistance against colonial rule. This contradictory history reveals that universality was proclaimed in principle while being systematically denied in practice for generations.

Enriching international standards with non-Western perspectives

Recognizing these tensions doesn’t mean abandoning human rights. Rather, it calls for enriching the international framework by genuinely incorporating non-Western perspectives. The duty-first approach and emphasis on community can address real limitations in the current system.

India played a crucial role in shaping the UDHR, with Hansa Mehta ensuring the declaration affirmed rights of all “human beings” rather than “men,” and India fighting for indivisibility between civil-political and economic-social-cultural rights. These contributions show how non-Western voices have already strengthened human rights discourse.

The emphasis on duties offers important correctives to rights-centered frameworks. Reclaiming the idea of duties is necessary for understanding many social problems the world faces today. Scholar Samuel Moyn notes that while much attention has been given to the history of rights, virtually no one has written a comprehensive history of human duties, despite their importance.

Similarly, recognizing collective rights alongside individual rights addresses real needs. Individual rights alone are not enough when certain fundamental needs-peace, healthy environment, self-determination, economic development-are inherently collective. Collective rights don’t compete with individual rights but recognize that protecting each individual in isolation is insufficient.

Moving forward requires acknowledging that multiple cultural frameworks can contribute to human dignity. The international system must evolve beyond a Western-centric model toward genuinely inclusive norms that respect cultural diversity while maintaining core protections. This means taking seriously the insights from traditions that emphasize duty, community, and relational personhood.

What do you think? Can the international human rights system truly become universal without incorporating non-Western perspectives on duty and community? How might emphasizing collective responsibilities alongside individual rights address contemporary global challenges?

References

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The Indian Traditions: Comparing Western and Non-Western Views on Human Rights

Table of Contents

The primacy of the group vs. the individual 🔗

Rights-first vs. duty-first approach 🔗

The critique of unbridled individualism 🔗

Universality in principle vs. practice 🔗

Enriching international standards with non-Western perspectives 🔗

References

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Human Rights – Indian Perspective

The primacy of the group vs. the individual

Rights-first vs. duty-first approach

The critique of unbridled individualism

Universality in principle vs. practice

Enriching international standards with non-Western perspectives