Authored CAPF Paper II precis exercise on the duties of the citizen alongside rights, with an original passage and a one-third model precis
Authored practice. The passage below is original, written for this wiki, not a verbatim previous-year question. Reduce it to about one-third of its length in your own words, third person, neutral, one connected paragraph, with a title and a stated word count.
A free society talks a great deal about rights and very little about duties, and this imbalance, though understandable, is dangerous. Rights are the language in which the citizen addresses the state, demanding what is owed to him, and a society that had forgotten rights would soon forget liberty itself. But rights cannot float free of duties, for every right claimed by one person is a duty laid upon another: the right to a fair trial is meaningless unless others perform the duty of impartial judgement, and the right to safety is empty unless someone accepts the duty of guarding it. A citizenry that demands every right and accepts no duty asks to live in a house it refuses to maintain. The healthiest civic culture is therefore one in which the citizen sees himself not only as a holder of claims against the state but as a contributor to the common good, paying his taxes honestly, obeying just laws, and giving something back to the community that sustains him. Liberty, in the end, is a shared possession, kept alive only by shared responsibility.
Reduce the passage to roughly one-third (about 58 to 62 words), in your own words, in one connected paragraph, in the third person and a neutral tone, with a title and a word count at the end.
Title: Rights Rest on Shared Duties
A free society stresses rights but dangerously neglects duties. Each right depends on someone performing a corresponding duty, so a citizenry that demands rights while shirking duties resembles people refusing to maintain their own house. A healthy civic culture treats the citizen as a contributor who pays taxes, obeys just laws and serves the community. Liberty survives only through shared responsibility. (61 words)