Are we really free?

Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains — these words of Jean Jacques Rousseau in his “social contract” holds good even today, though my take on this is a little different. Just take a look around you and you will see what I mean. My wishlist for fellow Indians on Independence Day (Freedom Day?) is freedom from these so-called chains.

For children, I wish for freedom from hunger, malnutrition, disease, cold, abuse (of all kinds), bonded labour, and freedom to enjoy all the rights due to a child — to education, shelter, medical help and protection.

My wish for women is freedom to be born — right to live and end female foeticide and infanticide. Freedom to go to school and to education, to take decisions and be able to make choices, freedom from domestic violence and from being forced to have selective abortions to produce male heirs, from subjugation and humiliation and freedom to live with dignity and respect and to have economic freedom as well.

For society, at large, I wish for freedom from corruption, untouchability, caste barriers, bigotry, religious intolerance, poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, superstition, and self-serving politicians. Against the backdrop of the above, I have been very lucky as I have enjoyed freedom that is denied to millions of Indian women.

I have had the freedom to wear what I want to, be it dresses, pants, skirts, shorts, salwar kurtas or saris. A dress code was never imposed. I was not brought up by parents who thought that “children should be seen not heard”. On the contrary my sister and I were given the freedom and encouraged to voice our opinions and share views and be a part of decision making in the family.

I had the freedom to choose what to study, how much to study and what career to pursue. Freedom to choose a life partner, to choose whether I want to take up a job or do social work.

Freedom to choose the number of children I want to have and the freedom to visit my parents as often as I want to and have them visit me. I know of a number of women who are not “allowed” to meet their parents more than once a year, nor are their parents welcome too often.

Having put down in black & white, a list of the freedom I have, I realise how really fortunate I am and am grateful for it.

I urge the small percentage of Indians who do enjoy a similar freedom, to celebrate India’s Independence every year as a time of thanksgiving. And also a time to rededicate ourselves to working towards breaking the chains mentioned above, to ensure freedom in all its aspects to all our brothers and sisters across our beloved country.

Until all the shackles are broken, India will not be truly free. I would like you to mull over Rabindranath Tagore’s poem as the words are as relevant today as they were decades ago:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the

dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action —

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.