What was the idea behind freedom! From where did the term emerge? From Nelson Mandela’s “long walk to freedom”? Or from Aung San’s “freedom from fear”? Or was it India’s swaraj?
Long Walk to Freedom
The autobiography of Nelson Mandela titled “the long walk to freedom “talks about his personal struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa, about the resistance of his people to the segregationist policies of the white regime, about humiliation, hardship, police brutalities and various mental, physical suffering through which the blacks of South Africa went through. For this freedom, Mandela spent twenty-eight years of his life in jail, often in solitary confinement.
Imagine what would have gone through!! What it meant to give up one’s youth for “an ideal, to voluntarily give up all the pleasure”: of family, talking with one’s friends, of playing one’s favourite game and Mandela loved boxing a lot, particularly of wearing one’s clothes, of listening to one’s favourite music, enjoying festivals. We can’t even imagine giving up these and instead choosing to be locked up alone in a room, not knowing when to be released, only because “one campaigned for freedom”. For freedom, Mandela paid a very high personal price.
Freedom From Fear
Aung San Suu Kyi has been a great source of Gandhiji’s thoughts on non-violence. She remained under house arrest in Myanmar, separated from her children unable to visit her husband when he was dying of cancer because she feared that if she left Myanmar she won’t be able to return. Aung San Suu Kyi sees her freedom as connected to the freedom of her people. Her book of essays bears the title “freedom of fear”. Where she says ‘for me real freedom is freedom from fear and unless you can live free from you cannot live a dignified human life.
Swaraj
The understanding of Swaraj as rule over the self is highlighted by Mahatma Gandhi in his work “hind swaraj” in 1909, where he states, “it is swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves”. Swaraj is not just freedom but liberation in redeeming one's self-respect, self-responsibility, and capacities for self-realization from institutions of dehumanization. Understanding the real “self” and its relation to communities and society.
And of course, we all know the struggle of our beloved Netaji Subhash Chand Bose said “by freedom I mean all-round freedom that is freedom of the individual as well as for society, rich and poor, men and women, freedom of the individual from all classes” this freedom implies not only emancipation from political bondage but also equal distribution of wealth, abolition of caste barriers and social inequalities and destruction of communalism and religious intolerance.
He was, also the founder of Azad hind ki sena and prepared alliances of sepoys from neighbouring countries to merge with Indian sepoys to fought against EIC i.e East Indian company and had also eloped from several years away from all his family friends, his belonging and asking for help in unknown nations!!!
Human history provides many examples of people and communities which have been dominated, enslaved or exploited, by more powerful groups. But it also provides us with inspiring examples of heroic struggles against such domination. What is freedom for which people have been willing to sacrifice and die?
In its essence, the struggle for freedom represents the desire of people to be in control of their own lives and destinies and to have the opportunity to express themselves freely through their choices and activities. In simple words, freedom is said to exist when external constraints on the individual are absent. Not just individuals but also societies also value their independence and wish to protect their culture and future!!!
Freedom of expression is under article 19 of the Indian constitution that helps an individual to express oneself without any restriction as a fundamental value and says freedom is the absence of external constraint. But now we realize that freedom embodies our capacity and our ability to make choices. And when we make choices, we have also to accept responsibility for our actions and their consequences.
It is the reason that most advocates of liberty and freedom maintain that children must be placed in the care of their parents. Our capacity to make the right choices to assess in a reasoned manner available options and shoulder the responsibility of our actions, have to be built through education and cultivation of judgment just as much as it needs to be nurtured by limiting the authority of the state and the society. Freedom: not yours or mine it’s everybody’s
Spreading pride, strength and happiness on Azadi ka mahaparva
Happy Republic Day
Jai Hind.
Proud Indian
Written by - Prathna Vatsalya
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