India @75!

India is into its 75th year of independence. People are into a celebratory mood. Are they indeed celebrating or just appear to be celebrating? 

The question arises as the very thing, i.e., ‘the Freedom', that they are celebrating or are 'supposed' to celebrate is quite difficult to find there. Because, their physical, mental, emotional, or financial freedom is getting curtailed each passing day on one pretext or the other. Their lives have become a kind of capital for the political and the business class which can be exploited at the whims and fancies of these groups. Their emotions, innermost feelings towards themselves, their families, society or country, caste, and religious affiliations or political leanings, for that matter, are on the display and are getting marketed by and for the benefit of such groups.

They are not putting themselves on display voluntarily rather being forced to do so to avoid any name-calling or being judged. All sorts of media have become tools for such exploitation. The picture is really scary! It's not very different from the one when the British arrived on the scene and started treating people here like commodities paralyzing, slowly but steadily, their knowledge, wisdom, thought processes, and individual will and identity before taking over them wholly and completely.

Is history repeating itself but with a difference that the capturers are not outsiders but rather the very insiders who have, in fact, been tasked with looking after and protecting the interests of the people they are exploiting?

Isn't this what our forefathers fought hard against all their lives? Is this the freedom they envisioned while laying down their lives to attain it?

Is it what a 'free nation' look like?

Most importantly, is this the ‘freedom’ this 75-year-old nation and its people are celebrating or should celebrate?

The answer is not too far to be sought. It lies in the very Constitution, which is relied upon, every now and then, by the exploiters to justify their acts/omissions. But the very document is also the last refuge for the exploited. According to it, the right to do something also includes the right not to do it,  known as 'liberty' in Hohfeldian terms.

In other words, if the Constitution grants its citizens right to speak, the right to silence also forms an integral part of it. It's for the grantee to decide whether he wants to speak or remain silent, which is also a form of expression. No one can force him, called disability in Hohfeldian terms,  to choose one over the other for any reason whatsoever except for the reasons provided within the Constitution itself. The same holds true for all constitutional rights.

In this light, can it be said now that the country is really free and its people are reaping the fruits of such freedom keeping in mind the current turmoil they find themselves in? Their voices gagged and intellect impaired!

Undoubtedly, as proud citizens, we must celebrate this or any such moment but how we can do so when the country itself is crying? The tears are not of joy but of immense grief!

By: Brajesh Kumar