Human rights arerncommonly understood as fundamental rights to which a person is inherentlyrnentitled simply because she or he is a human being, the effective realizationrnof which can be achieved only through an efficient democracy. Though sixtyrnyears have passed after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is stillrnmore of a dream than reality as violations exist in every part of the world.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, set during the Emergency ofrn1975, perfectly captures the emotions of Dalits and the marginalized whosernrights were denied and their freedom snatched away. Mistry conveys withrnthunderous impact the fragile line between living and existing in a countryrnbesieged with political squalor and sociologic catastrophe of the extant casternsystem. This paper examines whether the Indian democracy was capable ofrnproviding the basic human rights in the post Independent India by analyzing RohintonrnMistry’s A Fine Balance and the recent Chhattisgarh SterilisationrnTragedy, November 2014.