On the eve of sixty-fifth year of India’s Independence, eminent scriptwriters Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar voice their thoughts on freedom, how much of that has been achieved and how far we still have to go…
‘Honesty starts from our conscience’ - Salim Khan
We have only got the freedom to breathe. We can’t talk, we can’t demand. It is a very selective democracy.
It was after so many sacrifices, so many lives laid down and so many tragedies that India got its freedom. The individuals who sacrificed selflessly for India had a vision for post-independence India. But what happened? Did we get freedom from poverty? Did we get freedom from hatred? Can all the people of India manage to get at least two square meals a day?
Forget communal harmony between two religions, today there are caste wars and daughters are killed by their parents. No political party says what they will do for the country, instead they expose scams of the other party during elections for their own gain. Will corruption stop when the Lokpal bill comes into existence? Will that police c o n s t ab l e, who stands at the other end of the ‘No Entry’ sign give up his chance of taking home 2,500 to 3,000 in bribes every day? We give bribes even to get our legal and legitimate work done. Even I have succumbed to that.
Honesty starts from our conscience. It is our mother who tells us ‘don’t pick it up, give it back’. But mothers these days are seen only on the silver-screen not at home. Mothers are busy at work or found in clubs. The family is the first school and a mother is the first teacher. But that doesn’t happen today. Freedom doesn’t merely mean driving the British out and hoisting our flag. Law and order, governance, administration was much better in the British period. I was 12-ye a r s - o l d when we got our freedom and I have exper i e n c e d those days. Today, people have the freedom to announce Bharat bandh, they have the freedom to burn buses, freedom to block roads.
‘We have to be free of biases’ - Javed Akhtar
Are we really free? I am afraid it can’t be answered in a yes or a no, because we as a society, as a nation, are rather paradoxical.
There are countries where there is no freedom, you cannot write anything, you cannot say anything, you cannot protest against the establishment. We are somewhere in between. I can write articles against the establishment, I can write about various cultures, sub-cultures, communities. I can dissent on the most sensitive topic, but I can’t do the same in a movie. That will be banned. That will be censored. The people who matter are willing to give the common man freedom up to a point where it does not challenge the status quo. And when it comes to that, there is no freedom.
But we should not be pessimistic. Since we have accepted the basic norm of freedom, we have got our basic morality right. In practice, we have to struggle and get complete and real freedom. However, this ideal form of freedom is not possible without some kind of economic justice in the society.
What is freedom to me? That I be allowed to live with all my identities. I don’t believe in a singular identity as it can be dangerous.
Everybody should be free to protect his or her dignity. I should be free to make choices — the kind of job I want, where I live, who I marry…Our law allows us but society is not very liberal, to put it mildly.
A lot of freedom is taken away from an individual not from law enforcement agencies but from the civil society, which itself cries for freedom. It’s a contradiction. We as individuals have to be free of biases, prejudices, opportunism, corruption and only then we can have acompletely free society.
