What are the fundamental rights which every human
being has. And the free exercise of which must be guaranteed to him or her by
few rights, and almost every department of his life was open to check and interference
by the State. By the tribal chief or by the priesthood. The result of this was
that the individual had no will or choice of his own, and was completely
subordinated to the ruling class of the group or society of which he formed a
member.
Bet since the rise of democracy there has been a
move in the direction of respecting the freedom of the individual, which had
not existed before. The liberal thought, which too: rise in the eighteenth
century in Europe as a result of the thinking and reasoning exercise of
authority over the individual by Church or State was seriously questioned. And
it came to be recognized that some limits should be set to the power of
society. And man should be given some rights and a measure of freedom
consistent with the well-being of his fellow citizens and the State of which he
formed a member.
When the American colonies fought their War of
Independence against England; they drew up a document in which the rights of
the individual were defined. It was declared that all men were born free, and
that no interference with their liberty’ could be brooked, and the Wars of
Independence was being fought to vindicate this right to liberty.
When the French Revolution came in 1789. It set
forth a threefold principle as the basis of the people’s struggle against their
rulers. This principle was the principle of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
Interpreted, this means that all men are free, and no one has the right of
undue interference with them in their private life. Secondly, that all men are
equal in the eyes of the law and the Constitution, and that on one can claim
privilege over anyone else on the score of birth, position or for any other
reason. Fraternity is an emphasized form of this concept of Equality it means
that all men are like brothers.
Democracy was established in Europe in the
nineteenth century, though it has been fully successful only in Great Britain
and France in Europe, and in the U.S.A. Recently, the Soviet Republics of
Russia have initiated an experiment which in its fundamental definition of the
rights of man has gone farther than any previous republic. But is regretted
that in doing so they have so much controlled the rights of man that it has
almost become an autocracy rather than democracy.