Freedom: A state of mind
Today, India celebrates its 77th birthday. A nation is born when it is free. Free of hegemonies that don’t represent them. Free from those who don’t treat them with respect. Free from those who came to trade but ended up as tyrants, subjecting the natives to two centuries of colonization.
I just finished reading a book by a friend, who extolls the history and struggle, and yet unmet ambition of land for his people. A land that was theirs for centuries yet is now occupied by those who themselves were victims of the holocaust.
Look at it this way.
Stand in front of a mirror. We are in India. Close your eyes. Let the thoughts race. You feel a tingle. That thought crosses your mind. That thought you always wanted to express. But you cannot. There is a block. A sense of fear. You don’t know what it is. That is how fear feels.
I am a writer. I love to express myself. But can I express it without that tingling feeling? I get the same tingling feeling when I write about subjects I am uncomfortable about. Why?
I read about the news of abuse, arrests, and attacks on writers, journalists, and artists who have views that are ‘free’. How many of those who wear thin skins know about the days when people gathered to listen to the debates in the open dais — right from the village corners to universities, and then went about their work, living their lives while soaking in the richness of knowledge that floated into their ears.
India was always a society of seekers, till a point. Seeking is about making one better, living, and letting live. There is freedom for everything, when there is an open mind to listen, understand and live. But, at seventy-seven, right from those who vote and those who are voted in, the idea of ‘freedom’ is about ‘their idea’ and not about listening or debating ‘other ideas’.
Diversity in thought is what makes freedom valuable. Diversity of thought makes better societies and better societies make great nations. If we cannot tolerate others’ viewpoints, we are nothing but a monolithic, dogmatic nation — we are disconnecting from our great past that we are so dogmatic about.
For no rabble-rouser has ever read the scriptures and great texts of the yore. The limited knowledge and understanding, pandered to large crowds result in mass hysteria, which in turn makes everything that they say right. The scriptures and texts themselves have great meaning and purport to wisdom. If somebody has a different interpretation, that should be open to debate and not flagged under some law.
The liberty of thought and expression cannot be contained in any constitution, for when a diverse group of people comes under a flag, that flag has to represent them in a fit and proper manner.
The constitutions of great democratic nations were written with noble thoughts, just at the back of some terrible events that taught lessons then. If those who follow in the future keep them aside, then they have never learned the value of freedom their ancestors got them.
Social media, frivolous litigations, television trials, and police action today have become easy tools to contain this diversity of thought. If my thought cannot be free, then my nation is not.
Freedom of a nation, therefore, is a state of mind that its flag, nation, army, constitution, judiciary, executive, and legislature should stand for. Freedom of thought is the core of a liberal nation. Till then, we are a work in progress.
~Ashok Subramanian © 2023
