High price of freedom

In the backdrop of the country celebrating its 77th year of independence, it is imperative to think about our ideas of liberty – civil, personal, religious, political, and everything in between. The question is pertinent, thanks the polycrisis India faces on multiple fronts. For the past few months now, we has been dealing with the shame of having remained mute spectators to the theatre of barbarism playing out in Manipur. Women have been dragged out of their homes, stripped and assaulted in full public view as tensions have mounted between two ethnic groups over a question of reservations. As seen in conflict zones, the innocents who have nothing to do with such disagreements, are often the ones who pay the heaviest price for the mob’s fury.

Freedom from sexual violence is a far-fetched dream for these women hailing from underserved regions where the idea of law and order is nebulous. Gender-based, caste-based, and communal violence is par for the course in India. The abhorrent manner in which right-wing narratives are taking centre stage, casting a shadow of terror on minority communities is something we must be ashamed about. Although episodes of such discrimination are exposed to the world in a matter of seconds, that it is not a deterrent strong enough to dissuade the perpetrators.

A case in point is the manner in which an RPF constable recently went on a killing spree, murdering three members of the minority community on a moving train in Maharashtra. The soldier is known to have raised slogans praising the PM and the CM of Uttar Pradesh, emboldening other individuals with extreme viewpoints. Days later, a viral video featured a group of armed men parading through a commercial street in Haryana, warning shopkeepers to desist from hiring Muslim workers, and even threatening non-Hindu shopkeepers with eviction and destruction of their properties.

Our complacency regarding personal liberties is being tested with the introduction of legislations on love jihad introduced in a few states. Individuals in interfaith relationships now seek police protection to conduct their weddings. On many occasions, honour killings have been carried out with impunity, and relatives convince themselves that the victims had it coming. And let’s not even get started on the freedom enjoyed by members of the queer community, who just about managed to kick out Section 377 sixty years after independence.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have members of the media and press, a community whose sense of freedom is shaky, to say the least. Journalists like Siddique Kappan, who was imprisoned while heading out to report on a heinous rape case, was released just recently, two years after incarceration. He was arrested on trumped up charges of posing a threat to national security and archaic British-era laws of sedition. Observers pointed out that it was necessary to make an example out of him, so that other members of the fourth estate do not begin harbouring overtly revolutionary ideas.

This is not to rule out any and every evidence of progress made in the country. However, the fact remains that independence is still a loosely-strung idea in India, something the privileged have more reasons to celebrate than the others. Maybe, ask the little girls and boys selling tricolour badges at traffic intersections pan-India. It should pretty much give you a good idea as to how free we are.