Citizenship is also about duties, not just rights: CJI

Nagpur, January 18

Chief Justice of India Sharad Bobde on Saturday said citizenship was not only about people’s rights, but also about their duties towards society.

Speaking at the 107th convocation of the Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU) here, he lamented that some educational institutes had become “extremely commercially-minded”. He said developing intelligence and character was the true goal of education. “Today, education is proliferating.

Unfortunately there are some institutes, I am not talking about universities, which have become extremely commercially-minded. I say this from my personal knowledge of certain institutes which profess to teach law,” he said.

“The most important question we should address is what is the purpose of university education. Universities are not about brick and mortar certainly. Universities aren’t supposed to function like assembly line of a production unit,” the CJI said.

“It is also very important to emphasise that university degrees are not end in themselves, but are means to an end. Most importantly, the idea of university reflects what we want to achieve as a society. Universities should re-orient themselves and ensure that they stay true to the compass and march on towards the basic goal of the society, which undoubtedly changes at different times,” he added.

On education, the CJI said, “Closely connected with idea of education is the idea of discipline and I understand that there is a growing resentment in some areas about the idea of discipline. But the word discipline does not mean what it has come to mean today.

“Discipline comes from the word disciple and the word disciple comes from learning. It is the state of mind in which one can learn endlessly any subject. Education is the state of mind for disciples and that state of mind is discipline,” he said. — PTI