Well, what about it?
As far as I’m concerned freedom doesn’t exist as an independent. If we’re talking soaps, shampoos and combs we get free on a purchase—costs there are not exactly hidden. Freedom of, and within, love, territory and madness? I can only think of hidden costs, boundaries and asylums in response. Whatever made anyone think freedom is free? Absurd thought, don’t you think, considering how Hosni Mubarak or Suresh Kalmadi is paying tax long overdue on his freedom. Some have to fight for it, while some are born into an enlightened world that hands freedom down like an heirloom. But the latter’s a world that hasn’t taken a close look at its history because freedom is always paid for. Always.
The exploration of this word is something that intimidates me. Not only is it an inflammatory concept in this State (feel free to read that with an S or s), it will also be giving Indian intelligence agencies a headache when they find another piece written ALL OVER AGAIN on ‘freedom’. Barring that, it continues to beat to pulp the common range of people who deal with the issue: writers, poets, prisoners, colonized peoples, counter-insurgents and children with tyrannical parents.
Such as mine. If we were to be in their territory, we had to go by their rules. We had to get educated at schools they had picked, and we had to brush with toothpaste they found minty. If we were to practice additional freedoms like gluing our palms together with Fevicol, and then peeling the dried glue off, we needed permission. Which was not given, but we did it anyway. There were certain other freedoms that fell beyond the purview of sanctions, like hitching a ride with strangers, or making friends with the new Baloch boy* next door. There was no question of a question there. These things fell under what parents classified as ‘security issues’ on which no debate, discussion or verification was permitted. The law on what was dangerous or not had already been made, and indulging in a discussion about it was a waste of time, as far as they were concerned. If we persisted, our knuckles were rapped on.
They were, as is a State, the guardians of security, and freedom, in as much as they were the agents of love and all those blues. It kept us alive, sure, but under the banner of love they committed a number of horrifics that are unfortunately not covered by international law (mostly because it wasn’t as bad as I make it sound, but you know children and how bitter they are). Transgression of their territorial law meant breaking the institution of the ‘family’; it meant secession and independence, not sovereignty and self-determination. Gak! Would you, as a child, have liked it if oppressors like these paraded around every year on your birthday celebrating your freedom?
Yet every wretched year of scams after the other, we wake up early on ‘independence day’ (and before you work yourself up into a pointless frenzy, I’m talking about all kinds of such days celebrated by all kinds of nationalities, existent on paper or not) just to hoist flags to declare independence. From what?
The British? Check.
Colonial oppression? No.
The Queen? Check.
Female foeticide? No.
The British/their corporate friends stealing regional resources? Check.
The Indians/their corporate friends stealing regional resources? No.
Independence itself is a marvelously confusing word when applied to a sovereign nation. Almost as if a certain kind of vanity declaring its independence from the mirror. In the context of shifting territories and internal conflict, it is like claiming that territorial sovereignty takes care of in-dependence of the people within the larger territory from such factors as bad governance, corruption and exclusion. Are we free from the corrupt? Are we free to choose an anarchic way of life, or progressive, or polygamic, technocratic, tribal, Marxist, chick-lit or Buddhist? Are we free from the economics of a ‘free market’? Again, freedom won’t be free or a vacuum for chaos to fill in but where we trade some freedom for equity or social justice, instead of for ‘security’, as we are often asked to do. It seems to me like a day of independence should be celebrated with a future in mind where rights are for all political beings (which is everyone), to spend a day thinking of a system that doesn’t assimilate without recognition, and doesn’t apply one (and only) rule to all of a nation, society or family.
Instead, we spend a day honouring the ousting of a queen, only to be replaced by another (Sonia Gandhi, of course).
What we’re really left with is a bunch of political puppet pullers who pompously celebrate ‘independence’, juggle some balls at a parade, convince you of the price they’re paying for YOUR freedom (because they love you), and then make you pay that price anyway, which is probably abysmally high, more abhorrent to the gut than the pocket. Isn’t it a bit counter-intuitive to celebrate (celebration being an intimate gesture) with a bunch of cretins who’re stealing the very thing they promise to give you? Freedom from poverty, freedom from conflict, freedom from corruption, freedom from oppressors, freedom of the press, none of which we actually get as a people. Dignity derived from freedom is a right, not a benefit. It is, then, a bit counter-intuitive to dance the jingoist jiggle from hell, through choice, right before being locked up in one.
Freedom might come with a price but we might want to make a logbook of how much we want to pay for the freedom we get. Don’t go by what I say, ask Londoners, the Egyptians or your local media house.
____________________
*My sister and I were schooled in Oman for a number of years. Young girls couldn’t just walk out of the building compound to play because there was the apparent threat of being kidnapped and murdered by the Balochs, hoards of who had migrated to parts of West Asia to escape the conflict in Balochistan, following their demand for an autonomous/independent state, which Pakistan refused. We were explained none of this at the time.
As far as I’m concerned freedom doesn’t exist as an independent. If we’re talking soaps, shampoos and combs we get free on a purchase—costs there are not exactly hidden. Freedom of, and within, love, territory and madness? I can only think of hidden costs, boundaries and asylums in response. Whatever made anyone think freedom is free? Absurd thought, don’t you think, considering how Hosni Mubarak or Suresh Kalmadi is paying tax long overdue on his freedom. Some have to fight for it, while some are born into an enlightened world that hands freedom down like an heirloom. But the latter’s a world that hasn’t taken a close look at its history because freedom is always paid for. Always.
The exploration of this word is something that intimidates me. Not only is it an inflammatory concept in this State (feel free to read that with an S or s), it will also be giving Indian intelligence agencies a headache when they find another piece written ALL OVER AGAIN on ‘freedom’. Barring that, it continues to beat to pulp the common range of people who deal with the issue: writers, poets, prisoners, colonized peoples, counter-insurgents and children with tyrannical parents.
Such as mine. If we were to be in their territory, we had to go by their rules. We had to get educated at schools they had picked, and we had to brush with toothpaste they found minty. If we were to practice additional freedoms like gluing our palms together with Fevicol, and then peeling the dried glue off, we needed permission. Which was not given, but we did it anyway. There were certain other freedoms that fell beyond the purview of sanctions, like hitching a ride with strangers, or making friends with the new Baloch boy* next door. There was no question of a question there. These things fell under what parents classified as ‘security issues’ on which no debate, discussion or verification was permitted. The law on what was dangerous or not had already been made, and indulging in a discussion about it was a waste of time, as far as they were concerned. If we persisted, our knuckles were rapped on.
They were, as is a State, the guardians of security, and freedom, in as much as they were the agents of love and all those blues. It kept us alive, sure, but under the banner of love they committed a number of horrifics that are unfortunately not covered by international law (mostly because it wasn’t as bad as I make it sound, but you know children and how bitter they are). Transgression of their territorial law meant breaking the institution of the ‘family’; it meant secession and independence, not sovereignty and self-determination. Gak! Would you, as a child, have liked it if oppressors like these paraded around every year on your birthday celebrating your freedom?
Yet every wretched year of scams after the other, we wake up early on ‘independence day’ (and before you work yourself up into a pointless frenzy, I’m talking about all kinds of such days celebrated by all kinds of nationalities, existent on paper or not) just to hoist flags to declare independence. From what?
The British? Check.
Colonial oppression? No.
The Queen? Check.
Female foeticide? No.
The British/their corporate friends stealing regional resources? Check.
The Indians/their corporate friends stealing regional resources? No.
Independence itself is a marvelously confusing word when applied to a sovereign nation. Almost as if a certain kind of vanity declaring its independence from the mirror. In the context of shifting territories and internal conflict, it is like claiming that territorial sovereignty takes care of in-dependence of the people within the larger territory from such factors as bad governance, corruption and exclusion. Are we free from the corrupt? Are we free to choose an anarchic way of life, or progressive, or polygamic, technocratic, tribal, Marxist, chick-lit or Buddhist? Are we free from the economics of a ‘free market’? Again, freedom won’t be free or a vacuum for chaos to fill in but where we trade some freedom for equity or social justice, instead of for ‘security’, as we are often asked to do. It seems to me like a day of independence should be celebrated with a future in mind where rights are for all political beings (which is everyone), to spend a day thinking of a system that doesn’t assimilate without recognition, and doesn’t apply one (and only) rule to all of a nation, society or family.
Instead, we spend a day honouring the ousting of a queen, only to be replaced by another (Sonia Gandhi, of course).
What we’re really left with is a bunch of political puppet pullers who pompously celebrate ‘independence’, juggle some balls at a parade, convince you of the price they’re paying for YOUR freedom (because they love you), and then make you pay that price anyway, which is probably abysmally high, more abhorrent to the gut than the pocket. Isn’t it a bit counter-intuitive to celebrate (celebration being an intimate gesture) with a bunch of cretins who’re stealing the very thing they promise to give you? Freedom from poverty, freedom from conflict, freedom from corruption, freedom from oppressors, freedom of the press, none of which we actually get as a people. Dignity derived from freedom is a right, not a benefit. It is, then, a bit counter-intuitive to dance the jingoist jiggle from hell, through choice, right before being locked up in one.
Freedom might come with a price but we might want to make a logbook of how much we want to pay for the freedom we get. Don’t go by what I say, ask Londoners, the Egyptians or your local media house.
____________________
*My sister and I were schooled in Oman for a number of years. Young girls couldn’t just walk out of the building compound to play because there was the apparent threat of being kidnapped and murdered by the Balochs, hoards of who had migrated to parts of West Asia to escape the conflict in Balochistan, following their demand for an autonomous/independent state, which Pakistan refused. We were explained none of this at the time.
