HYDERABAD: Speaking on how the feudal system in India treated peasants like ‘semi-animals’, Pankaj Dutt, a human rights activist, on Saturday delivered the fifth lecture in remembrance of Prof RS Rao, a famous political economist and dialectician in Hyderabad on Saturday. In his lecture, Dutt stressed on how property relations act as an impediment in bringing change and development in any society. He explained how that transformation of property rights will play an essential role in laying foundation to democratic rights.
The lecture ‘Revisiting Human Rights through RS Rao’, was organised at Sundarayya Vignana Kendram here by ‘B 1 Collective,’ a thinker-activist group, of which Dutt is an integral member. During the occasion, Dutt said that Rao, who had believed in the Marxist ideology motivated several social activists in collectively fighting for rights of the people, through his work.
“As Marxists, it is only human beings who define the rights, and not the rights that define the human being,” he added. Noted intellectual Prof G Haragopal and well known political economist N Venugopal were chief speakers at the lecture.
They spoke on the topic of emergence of human rights in the societal structure. Highlighting the role of elections in a democracy, they said universal adult franchise is the greatest right a person can have. At the lecture, students of Prof RS Rao had a relook on his work titled, ‘Rights: Two Perspectives,’ they tried to bring in a perspective comparing the writings of Rao to the times when the works were compiled with the present situation.