Who can give liberty? Or who can take it? Liberty is a feeling, an emotion, and a state of mind. We are as free as we were during British rule or during the mighty Mughal Empire. Governments, rulers, and invaders came and went, but no one could take away the liberty of the people. How can anyone take your liberty? Or your soul? Similarly, the feeling that there is no liberty is more of a mental state than a physical one. We celebrated Diwalis and Vijayadashamis, got married, had our own children, and bought and sold property during British rule and during times much earlier too! If this is not liberty, then there is nothing that can be called freedom or liberty.
You are searching in vain. There is no place called Liberty. Who are the Constitution and ‘We the People’ to give ourselves liberty? The Constitution views liberty not as a state of mind but as something physical that can be give! We are giving you liberty. Take it! Both the giver and the taker must be crazy to view liberty in such a physical manner.
Giving liberty is more like giving gravity. It is fiction. How does it sound if I say our Constitution gives us all the liberty of gravity in the social, economic, and political spheres? Someone giving liberty is a fiction. How can our Constitution give us a fiction? And how can we take it? Liberty does not depend either on someone giving it or somebody else taking it. Liberty is a mental feeling, a satisfaction.
Leaving all concrete and tangible things aside, all that the Constitution gave us was liberty! What a shame. When I feel hungry, I need food, not liberty. Freedom, Liberty, Justice, and Fraternity are much romanticized, rather more than the romance between Shah Rukh Khan and his heroine in any Bollywood movie! In the same way that no one sings and dances in reality, the idea that we cannot live without liberty is an imagination and fiction and it is not true. There is no one to take my liberty, nor is there someone to give it. Any sane man expects concrete things from the Constitution, such as the ‘Right to Food’ and certainly not fiction. We are insane to have this Constitution.
The fiction of liberty has gone out of proportion with the ‘Statue of Liberty’. A statue of a lady holding a torch in her hand – USA. I think even in our fantasies we are more realistic – especially when it comes to religion. We have a God for creation, for sustenance, and for destruction. So much so that we even have a God for love – Manmatha. What we do not have is a God for liberty, a God for equality, and a God for justice!
This religious gap seemed to have been filled by the makers of the Constitution. In their fantasy world, they gave a bigger role to liberty, equality, etc. Emotional and often useless statements like ‘It is better to die than to live like a slave without freedom’ proves my point. For that matter, the entire ‘Freedom Struggle’ of India is based on these fictions.
I may sound odd, out of the box, crazy, and probably all put together. I need food, not fictional liberty. People need comfortable, hunger-free lives and that is equality and liberty. Liberty is something no one can give or take. And this is what our constitution is giving us. Hence, I feel cheated by the Constitution.
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
