elcountry depends upgn whether the Legislatures, the Executive and the Judiciary, function with integrity and fulfill the roles expected of them with discipline and dignity. 12.7 Human rights are not the alien concern of distant lands and distant civilizations that have been thrust upon us. The assertion of such rights and the determination to give constitutional form to them were central to the National Movement for the Independence of our country. That is why the chapter on Fundamental Rights found pride of place in the Constitution and why the first Home Minister of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was asked to chair the advisory committee of the Constituent Assembly that drafted this chapter. The Founding Fathers of our Republic knew, and we should remember, that a strong nation rests on a strong affirmation of Fundamental Rights, and that these must be non-derogable and justiciable. 12.8 As it turns fifty and looks to the future, it is not more pledges that the nation needs, for it has grown weary of them. It yearns for the fulfilment, in practical ways, of the promise of the Constitution. That was not a promise of Utopia, but it was a promise of a life in dignity for all of the people of India. And it is to the fulfilment of that purpose that this Commission is, by its Statute and vocation, committed. Sdl(M.N. Venkatachaliah) Chairperson Sdl(Virendra Dayal) Member Sdl(V,S.Malimath) Member New Delhi, 19 August 1997