The foundation of India in 1947, a year before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed, was inspired by a man whom history and Hollywood have judged the purest personification of human rights.
Mahatma Ghandi became famous for using non-violence as a tactic against a brutal colonial regime which relied on superior armed strength. But the country that produced Gandhi, has been plagued since independence with internecine, ethnic conflict resulting in a legacy of human rights abuses. This year's Amnesty International report on India's human rights record contains the inauspicious preamble: "Thousands of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, were arbitrarily detained."
It continues: "Torture and ill-treatment were endemic, leading to at least 300 deaths in custody. Prison conditions amounting to ill-treatment were common. `Disappearances' continued. Hundreds of extra-judicial executions were reported.
"At least 40 people were sentenced to death and five executions were carried out. Armed political groups committed grave human rights abuses, including torture, hostage-taking and killings of civilians."
Add to this a picture where an estimated 15 million children work as bonded labourers; Nepali girls and women are trafficked to Indian brothels; the systematic rape of women by Indian security forces goes unpunished and up to 9,000 prisoners are held in jails built to hold 2,500 and one cannot escape the conclusion that India has not grown into the haven of secular democracy its fathers envisaged in 1947.
Throwing off the yoke of British colonial rule, they faced bonding together 562 monarchical states with the territory ruled by their former British masters - home to a billion Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees, Jews and Hindus. The Constitution sought to gather these into a united India which would guarantee all fundamental rights, including freedom of religion and the right to conserve distinct languages, scripts and culture.
The caste system was attacked, with the practice of `untouchability' outlawed. An Indian-style `affirmative action' policy was introduced to reserve a certain percentage of college places and government jobs for the Scheduled Castes (untouchables) and Scheduled (aboriginal) Tribes.
Bold aspirations are one thing, enacting them quite another. The nature of the newly created federal structure was aptly described by Nehru, the nation's first prime minister, as being plagued with "fissiparous tendencies".
Almost every state outside the Hindi heartland in the centre of the country has its own militant autonomy movement. Politically-motivated violence has accounted for some of the worst human rights abuses.
India's enormity, as a republic of 26 states with 16 official languages, makes for a complex and diverse human rights picture. The victims of rights violations come from every community and region in the subcontinent.
At least 20,000 have been killed in political conflict in the Punjab since 1981. Jammu and Kashmir in the north of the country have also endured particularly high levels of human rights abuses - at least 12,000 have died in ethnic and border clashes with Pakistan over the past decade.
Reacting to Punjabi calls for greater autonomy, the central government has introduced emergency legislation which permits, amongst other measures, arrest and detention without trial for two years, secret trials and widespread censorsip.
The establishment in 1993 of the National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) is some recognition by the Government that its founding principles have been systematically undermined both by itself and by armed insurgency groups.
Its monitoring and investigation of human rights abuses, its advice to the Government and its promotion of human rights awareness have been welcomed by Amnesty International.
But Amnesty warns that if the authorities fail to take steps to act on the Commission's recommendations, its authority will be undermined and its minimal effectiveness further weakened.
