
CHENNAI: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is not a toothless tiger. It has powers equivalent to those of a civil court, NHRC chairperson V Ramasubramanian said on Monday.
He was replying to a question during the inaugural session of the 13th edition of the ThinkEdu conclave 2025 when he said, “We have the power to summon and enforce the attendance of witnesses. We have the power to record evidence if somebody does not turn up, we can follow the same steps as a civil court can enforce attendance. Therefore, it is not a toothless tiger.”
The inaugural session of the ThinkEdu was on the theme ‘Where India meets Bharat.'
Ramasubramanian strongly objected to the reason given by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) for deferring accreditation to NHRC.
Speaking on the topic ‘Balancing the Scales: Rights, Duties and the Indian Soul,’ moderated by Dinamani Editor Vaidyanathan. Ramasubramanian said GANHRI, the apex certification body of all national human rights institutions, has deferred NHRC’s accreditation for the last two years on the grounds that it has not been constituted as per the Paris Principles, 1993.
“I think there is a fundamental flaw in their argument. If you have to assess an institution and give accreditation, you must assess its performance and not its DNA,” said the chairperson of NHRC.
He further added, “If you assess the performance of NHRC and say that it is not up to the standard, we do not give you accreditation, I agree. But if you say that there is a congenital deformity in the way you are born, then I think it’s not about the accreditation of NHRC, but it is an accreditation of the government.”
Ramasubramanian agreed that the delay in granting global accreditation to NHRC is one of the major challenges for the organisation he took over as chairperson more than a month ago, but he is taking steps to resolve it.
He said that another challenge is enforcing human rights in a diverse country like India, which has people practicing more than eight major religions worldwide, divided by 1,640 castes and communities, speaking more than 22 official languages, and having different ethnicities.
Talking about rights and duties, Ramasubramanian said that historically all societies including India have been duty-conscious societies rather than right-conscious. But the course of history took a detour around the 20th century with the focus turning towards the rights. "The debate of rights vs duty has again regained momentum and there is an increasing awareness that their duties to fellow human beings have become the focus worldwide. Without imbibing upon ourselves the duty to respect the rights of others, I think our own rights will be put in jeopardy," he said.
Delivering the welcome address, Editorial Director of The New Indian Express, Prabhu Chawla, highlighted that TNIE is the only newspaper in the country to have sustained a high-quality conclave on education for the last 13 years. He attributed this achievement to innovation and values such as prioritising India and Bharat. “In the world of market, where valuations are becoming more important, we are all devoted to the values of Bharat,” he said. He further added that education is not commerce alone, but a value-building exercise for the newspaper.
Recalling the conclave’s journey, Chawla noted that it has hosted over 500 speakers and explored themes ranging from the Indianisation of education, entrepreneurship in education, and skilling students among others. He also cautioned against the excessive use of artificial intelligence, warning that it could diminish critical thinking and make people overly dependent on technology. He stressed the importance of finding the best ways to integrate modernity with traditional knowledge with our own inputs. A theme song created using Artificial Intelligence (AI) was also played during the inaugural session.