Freedom from, freedom of

After political and economic freedom, it is time India sought freedom again - of the human intellect

MY father was born in 1911. He lived to the age of eighty-two. I was born in 1957 and give myself an almost equal lifespan - that takes me to 2035. My first daughter was born in 1982 - I give her the same lifespan as I have and that takes her to 2062. Now I am fascinated with this seemingly mindless exercise. If you bear with me for a moment, you will notice that between my father and my daughter, with me in the middle - we span 150 years of India! That is an interesting span of time to look back and look ahead. Given this personalised view of time, 150 years no longer look daunting. If you try mapping your family the same way, I am sure it will begin to look like a reasonable view of time to take and present you with a fascinating perspective.

1911. The British are ruling India with an iron hand. World War I is three years away. Computers, penicillin and the bomb are decades away in the womb of time.

1957. A decade of Indian freedom has been celebrated. The Five-Year Plan system is in place. The world has seen two generations of computers; a third is on its way. In rural India, children are being inoculated against small pox and tuberculosis; there is a National Malaria Eradication Programme in force. I am born at home with the help of a mid-wife. There is no electricity or piped water in homes like ours.

1982. We have survived three wars and some famines. Democracy is deeply entrenched. My daughter is born in a hospital far away from where I work, and I fly down in an airplane to see her. We do not have a television at home yet, though in large cities people are excited about government deregulation of colour television kit import. Piped water and electricity is an urban phenomenon. India is largely self-sufficient in food. We are seen as an underdeveloped country with no significant exports.

2004: India is a respected democracy and manages her own finances. We can make the bomb and we write software well. Fishermen in Chennai check the weather on the Internet, and the milkman has a cellphone. Villages still lack drinking water and towns, and cities do not treat sewage. We do not carry loans we cannot repay, and we have food to eat.

My father's youth was characterised by the desire for political freedom. In those years he was a subject, not a citizen, of Her Majesty, the Queen. My youth was characterised by the desire for economic freedom. In those years, every family was issued a ration card. The government had monopoly on distribution of rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene. I would visit the ration shop once in 15 days, get the card filled, and walk home with two bags of foodgrains for my mother. Even cloth was a controlled item.

When I look at the first block of 50 years, it was about freedom from foreign rule. This was about political freedom. The next block of 50 years constituted the desire for freedom from hunger, or economic freedom. Both freedoms have been largely won. But as we look at the next 50 years, we have another challenge. It is time now, not for freedom from something, but a time to think about freedom of something. That something, for me, is the human intellect.

Intellect is a bird we can release into the sky, a bird we can cage too. Winning freedom of the intellect will be even more difficult than securing economic freedom. To do this, there is no convenient external enemy. The enemy is within, and it is going to be more difficult to engage. The battle will be a longer one. After all, we still live mired in a mindset that places low value on human life; we still live in a socio-economic system that is caste-oriented and exploitative. We treat our women marginally better than their counterparts in Third World countries. We continue to struggle with an outmoded education system that is conformist and seeks boundaries. Each of these challenges is rooted in our intellect. Today it seeks freedom from our own hands. And I feel optimistic. Because, this time around, it is my daughter's generation that will be in charge!