Real Freedom

Bikash Choudhury



India got freedom from colonial power full sixty three years ago; but, are we really free? Country may have attained freedom in a physical dimension but our thinking, actions, even our State machinery and other manifestation of State apparently, still remain under chains of colonial regime. Otherwise, how could a chunk of our own country men dare to start armed revolution against their own elected Govt.? Colonial regime established a system of governance to collect maximum revenue and spend as little as possible in order to repatriate wealth to the coffers of their parent country. Slowly people come to discover that same colonial mechanism of administration continue even today with minor cosmetic changes. People in Government treat ordinary citizens more or less as their subjects and follow a culture of licking at the top and kicking at the bottom. Further, in their work they absolutely don’t use their faculty and prefer to follow precedents, established customs against their better judgment to be safe. We continue to use colonial terminology Collector for the administrative head of a district. If any body approach a police station in the country for protection against mischief; it is more likely, he would receive a treatment not much different from that of colonial days. We still religiously follow the same Indian Penal Code that gained currency under imperial authority. We still love English language more than our National language Hindi and put our children in school to become clerk in Govt. office. Our rich people prefer to hoard their cash in foreign banks and top bureaucracy is designed & designated as I.A.S not much different from their colonial avatar I.C.S. Perhaps, five hundred years of colonization of the country has effectively transformed our DNA from master to slaves. Therefore, we have lost the ability to think independently. We need to regain our old habit of independent thinking as an independent country at all levels to become master of our own destiny; otherwise, at best we could be left as the clones of our colonial masters. Freedom to think independently as a free nation would constitute real freedom.

Tail piece: Govt. employees are both producer and consumer of government services; if some day at a given time all the employees of Government both central and state in the country decide to apply consumer centric approach in their transaction with common people and to works related to the welfare of people then overnight Govt. policies, programs and their execution would see a substantial improvement and bring in double digit growth of our economy with equity.