Part A of the paper reviews the prevalence of duties among historical Constitutions in the period 1895 and 1950. This was a period of fervent renaissance of Indian political thought.60 The analysis in this part establishes clearly that duties were not the primary constitutional instrument or normative category through which political and constitutional reform was sought to be achieved. The Gandhian and socialist political traditions evoke and use duties more extensively, albeit in contrasting ways. The next part of the paper explores to what extent these traditions shape and influence the Constituent Assembly Debates in India. Part B: Constituent Assembly Debates The Constituent Assembly comprising 389 members began proceedings on 9 December 1946 and adopted the Constitution of India, 1950, on 26 November 1949. The deliberations of the Assembly were duly recorded and published in twelve volumes. These volumes provide the fullest account into the motivations of the drafters of the Constitution and deserve careful review. This part of the paper explores the extent to which duties of citizens are proposed to be included in the Constitution or deliberated upon in any other context. A comprehensive search for ‘duties’ in the Debates reveals that duties are invoked in three different modes: duties of citizens, duties of state officials and the duties as a synonym for taxes and levies. Of these three modes, only the first is relevant for the purposes of this paper. Duties of citizens or individuals are referred to twenty-one times,61 a relatively small number which confirms that duties were not a significant topic of deliberation in the Assembly. The references to duties are concentrated in two specific periods in 1948 and 1949, respectively. Hence, the discussion in this part is organised chronologically below. 1. 1948 Deliberations The first mention of citizens' duties was when V.S. Sarwate proposed an amendment to Article 40 of the Draft Constitution (Article 51, Constitution of India 1950) on 25 November 1948 to include after the phrase ‘The State shall…’ the clause ‘(a) foster truthfulness, justice, and sense of duty in the citizens’.62 Sarwate sought to memorialise Gandhian ideology which was central to the freedom struggle that secured Indian independence. He emphasised M.K. Gandhi’s belief in truth being equivalent to God and the basis of society.63 He conceded that the clause may be C.A. Bayly, Recovering Liberties Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire(Cambridge University Press, 2011). 61 22 July 1947, 8 November 1948, 22 November 1948, 23 November 1948, 25 November 1948, 30 November 1948, 2 December 1948, 3 December 1948, 9 December 1948, 26 May 1949, 11 August 1949, 24 August 1949, 10 September 1949, 12 September 1949, 14 September 1949, 17 November 1949, 18 November 1949, 21 November 1949, 23 November 1949, 24 November 1949, 25 November 1949 62 25 November 1948, Amendment No. 1018 to Article 40 of the Draft Constitution. 63 7.60.64, Constituent Assembly Debates on 25 November 1948, https://www.constitutionofindia.net/ debates/25-nov-1948/ (accessed 9 October 2023). 60 32 Journal of the National Human Rights Commission, Vol. 22, 2023