Independence Freedom and a cup of tea...

It was a dark rainy Bangalore evening. Rain was playing the drums to the wind’s guitar. Oblivious to all this I and a friend were coming from a late night screening of the Harry Potter. As we drove back, visibility was getting worse and the only light visible, was from street lamps. We decided to stop at a road side tea stall, and as we were sipping hot tea, and watching the rain,. But my friend was nervous; he had just returned from Africa and was watching the sparse evening crowd suspiciously. I said, “Relax this is Bangalore one of safest cities in India.” He half smiled and told me,” I am not worried about the crooks; it’s the cops that scare me”. The police I reaffirmed, he said yes, in the country where he was based, it was daily occurrence that police picked you up if they saw two or more people aggregating in the streets after dark.

Suddenly I felt a strange sensation, I felt free, free to do what I want, Free to go for a late night movie, free to stop at a tea stall in wet weather and sip hot tea. On the eve of Independence Day celebrations, I again ask the same question, What does Freedom mean to me?

The question had come to me earlier in the day. Now I had this uncle who had settled down in Sweden long ago. So when he came visiting Bangalore, I was obliged to go see him. He had constantly been talking about how Sweden was truly a democratic nation and free while Indians were still not free. But the point is we have to compare apples to apples, Sweden has never been ruled by a foreign power, even in World War 2 they were neutral. But India has just become Independent in 1947, and should be compared to other countries that became independent at the same time.

Also India's geographic location in Asia creates a unique case study.

Things must not have been the same 60 years ago under the British rule, but situation many Asian countries even today are no different from India under British rule. They are ruled by dictators and despots, with no freedom of expression. The Arab Spring movement across the Middle East and Northern Africa is an indication of the oppression that many people under these despots are undergoing. Currently there are more than 50 countries out of the 167 odd sovereign nations in the world that are ruled by totalitarian regimes. These include the largest country in population terms China. These facts are according to the Democracy Index that is given by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Also the interesting fact is that most of these countries are either in Asia or Africa, with India being one of the exceptions classified as a flawed democracy. Interestingly you can count the true democratic countries in Asia- India and the few nations that form Asean, Mongolia and Japan.

And Democracy and freedom go hand in hand. I am not saying that we are a great nation; all I am saying is that we are freer than most others in our neighborhood.

What does freedom mean to me?

Freedom means writing this blog, without fear that once it is posted, I might get a might night visit from internal security or the police. Freedom means signing the petition circulated by Anna Hazare without having my bank account frozen.

There was this incident that I remember, a few years ago, one of my friends has a funny incident in one of the Middle East Kingdoms, his son a 8 year old had sent sms's through his father's phone wishing happy Independence day to his friends, needless to say the next day my friend received a visit from the internal security officers, just doing a back ground check on my friends activities...

A chill ran down his spine as he tried to convince the officers that his son was celebrating the Indian Independence day. The incident got me thinking, how come the officers were monitoring the phones? I do make many phone calls here and have never bothered to keep my conversation under check as I AM FREE. Recently there was a big issue about the News of the World scandal as the voice mail of many citizens in the UK. The News of the World has stopped functioning but can you imagine that for those 50 odd counties and the billions of people living there this is the daily reality that someone listens to their every conversation.
During the cold war the entire Eastern Europe was under the Iron Curtain and people suffered under cruel dictators. Now these countries are free to reach out to the rest of the world and to achieve their potential.

A great leader once said that freedom and discipline go had and hand. India is free but Indians are not disciplined, that seems to be the root cause for all our problems.

But still the question remains what does freedom mean to you?