What is Freedom After All?

What is freedom? I have often pondered over the question as have so many others. For a country it could be the freedom to be governed by a democratically elected government. For a prisoner, it is the day he is released. To a man or a woman it is the ability to exercise one’s own choices. Yet what choices? One man who gets sadistic pleasure out of wringing the necks of cats and other animals, is that freedom for him? So we could add to the definition by saying, “to exercise the ability to make one’s choices without imposing on the rights of other living beings”.

For someone living in a country with no democratically elected government, it could well mean fighting for the right to vote. For a woman, it could be having the right to make one’s own choices regarding a partner( or spouse), having a child or having an abortion. Yet we have our groups clamouring for anti abortion laws which would take away the right from a woman to her own body and make her body a property of the state where the state decides that she cannot have an abortion, though she may very well not be ready to take care of the baby.

Women in India and other such countries often think they are free, yet, I ask, are they? A large number still decide to meet boys as per the wishes of their parents and decide to marry them willingly enough and lead happy lives. Yet are they free? Others attempt to marry who they will, some successfully and some not. Some like Neena Gupta are single mothers and happily so. Is that freedom? Or a gay or a lesbian coming out and living with a same sex person, yes that could be construed as freedom.

The West probably provides for more freedom in the sense that it is easier to do one’s own thing. I met this woman recently who travels around on her own, moving to another country town when she feels one is getting too stifling. Yet now after 10 years of itinerant travelling, she wants to settle down in one place. That is something that is easier to do in the Western world. To do that in India would either drive your family up the wall with worry as most families will criticise you and call you names but still they wont let you go! So they’ll fret and worry and possible make you do the same. So would a trip alone somewhere put the family in a tizzy. So a Deepti Naval may do a trip trekking along the frozen Zanskar river in the midst of the Himalayan winter yet your family may well label you as crazy or as a downright bad influence on your kids if you plan one! So either one develops a thick skin and carries on or gives up and conforms to the norms of persuading a recalcitrant husband along!

How free are Indian women anyway? Financially, they’ll give up their careers for their families or play second fiddle at any rate. I have this friend who despite being among the brightest in her class ended up giving way to her husband’s aspirations and letting hers go along with him. To her family and her husband’s that was the only obvious way and it didn’t even raise any questions. Not all women do that though, some do stick to their course and either end up alone or have an understanding and sometimes a passive husband who follows. Only sometimes do they manage a balance, both following their lives the way they want to , yet together. Yes perhaps the older way was better, children do after all need a parent at home, yet there is no going back now.

India and other such countries will have to become more flexible now, have to have part time jobs, workplace crèches, paternity leave etc. There is no point crying over spilt milk, one has to move on. People give up someone they love for their families, women get their female foetuses aborted for their families, carry on marriages for their children’s sake. Yes the Family is king and perhaps that has a lot of benefits, no doubt. Yet, why is it that I feel they are captive, they hide and do things without the family getting to know, fantasise but stick to the family’s norms. Is that what we want, the veneers and not the true faces. The fixed smile but not the laugh. Is that truly better for the children? Yes, they may grow up and work hard and land good jobs and make the family proud but they will be just that, slave to the FAMILY, happy enough yet strangely restless, dissatisfied for they don’t think for themselves or even know themselves, just what they are programmed to be.

Freedom would be then to stand on one’s own for what you are without fear of disapproval, when you do things that you want to and not because others would be hurt if you didn’t. When you let others be. When you see all as a family and not just who they tell you is your family. WHEN YOU ARE YOURSELF. How many of us are ourselves , that is the question?