Verick, Sher. 2014. Women’s labour force participation in India: Why is it so low? International Labour Organization, http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-new_delhi/documents/genericdocument/wcms_342357.pdf.
Part VCONCLUSION
15Freedom
What is the difference between Anna Hazare fasting to draw attention to his ethical position against corruption and a homeless person starving because he lacks the means to get food? Both these people are living in a politically free country. Neither is gaining good nutrition and both are in pain. But the difference is that while the former is exercising free will, the latter is not free because he has no choice. Only the latter is enslaved to his condition of starvation.
If a young man who is the heir to his father’s business chooses not to pursue an education he is exercising his choice. Another man who has no money and does not have the choice to study is enslaved to the deprivation of education. The former is free, while the latter is not.
A woman who chooses, without any external pressure, not to earn her livelihood—for motherhood, lack of interest, or any other reason—has freedom. A woman who is either forced to work due to financial constraints or any other reason or forced not to work is enslaved.
When we think of freedom, we usually think of civil and political rights. But for a person who is hungry, or is having to take on a burdening loan because there is no governmental health care, freedom means the freedom from that hunger or debt or the kind of insecurity that causes him to kill himself. For a person who wants to study but is held back by finances, freedom is getting an education. For a woman who is prohibited from going out to work, freedom means having the choice to pursue her aspirations outside the domestic setting.
The birth of India was marked by political freedom, which meant freedom from external government coercion—and nothing else. It did not mean freedom from hunger, exploitation and disease. There are many other forms of freedom that are needed to guarantee a fulfilling life. We cannot evolve if we are not free to do so. Only if we are granted free movement can we explore. If our sexual freedom is curbed, we can certainly not procreate. I have written in the first part of this book about how humans are instinctually predisposed towards survival, evolution, exploration and procreation. But a prerequisite for us to abide by these instincts is freedom.
I would therefore argue that the crucial difference between freedom and slavery is a person’s voluntary action, as opposed to compulsion. Elaborating this argument, I have raised a few questions in the second part of this book: Are we really free if bound by law (especially as the law is subjective anyway, changing from one country to another)? How can we exercise individual free will if we are pressured to conform to certain societal values we might not believe in? In the second and third parts of this book, I have discussed the idea that in India, politics, society, corporations and religions have become contraptions of our own making that restrict our ‘absolute freedom’. We created these institutions, which have now laid out rules that frame our life. The collectivist voice of these institutions tells us, ‘No, there is no absolute freedom. You need to enslave yourself to gain a livelihood, and society holds the right to limit your individual freedom.’ Should we listen to this collectivist voice and drop the delusion of our ‘freedoms’? Should we suppress our instincts to freely evolve, explore and procreate as per our choice? Should we accept that our freedoms are whatever society decides they are?
My quest for answers to these questions has not been merely an intellectual exercise. I am no economist sitting at my desk and commissioning research reports to then write about the report’s conclusions from a bird’s-eye view. Instead, my academic training has equipped me to scientifically investigate and objectively study my intimate experiences and involvement with India. What I have experienced and felt in India has been the key to the comparisons I have made with the experiences and feelings of others in India and abroad. It has made me read about various approaches to the same issue, because surely, there are several perspectives other than mine towards a country as vast and wild in its beauty as India. These are the reflections that I have, in all naked honesty, poured into this book.
In doing so, I have been well aware that my ability to recognize and follow my instinct has been a gift of my education at home, at school and of my explorations as a young adult in the world. But I have also long realized that while this gift has empowered me with volition, it has been my volition and the consequent life choices I have made that have almost made me feel apologetic towards the society of the country that I belong to.
The instances are many, and I have referred to some of them in this book. My rejection of religious rituals (while fully welcoming others following them) from the age of six onwards was supported by my parents, but not by society. I have, till date, not been forgiven for absconding at age nineteen on the day of a ‘surprise’ arranged engagement to a man I hardly knew. A few years later, in a country where boys need to study primarily to get a job, I am still told by members of the extended family to ‘take it easy’. On the other hand, when I have quit the ‘right jobs’ which seemingly increased my social status in order to pursue my heart’s desire I have been made to feel sorry and nervous by the people around me. When I lived across the world with my long-term Muslim partner, I was ostracized by my family for a few years. And when my partner and I parted ways after
