Freedom From Slavery
Well, thinking about slavery: What’s the first thing that pops up in
your mind when you hear the word? The American Revolution and
Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, right? Well ‘Slavery’ originated
from the from Slaves. We all know this.
I’m saying this ’cause I need something to fill this ‘extravagantly’
extraordinary essay up!
Alliterating? Yep.
So, moving back, Slavery which now considered a crime thanks to
Abraham Lincoln, was quite a normalized phenomenon in the ‘good
old days’. Notice the irony? Though the word slavery is related to
‘bought humans’, humans were not just enslaved by those wealthy
Europeans, particularly Britishers, but humans are still enslaved by
many maleficent phenomena, emotions, concepts. To some extent
as in case of the evident toxic concept of few half-wit Indians,
particularly Bengalis who don’t forget to mention how magnificent is
the spoken English of their wards while flaunting about their inability
to be comfortable in their mother tongue.
We are still enslaved by corruption. A significant number of
Politicians are corrupt. Government officials are effortlessly bribed
into illegal deals. Moving to business men, cheating has become a
trend and businessmen who are not trendy here, are considered
incompetent and are quickly reduced to bankruptcy. Corruption
enslaves.
Now, talking of the generally ignored race, the common man, we find
him enslaved to anger, jealousy, greed, a tendency of inflicting harm
on others, gossiping etc. which my Indian ancestors would’ve called ‘Ripus’ or the greatest enemies of human race. Technically speaking,
just like the colonialists became master of their slaves, it is high time
we must realize that we are enslaved by our Ripus.
So, then the question is: — Are we free? ‘Course no!
Then why do we celebrate Independence or for that matter
freedom? The answer is: To keep the small light of hope lit in our
hearts of becoming ideal human beings. We can hope about being
truly free only when we understand the word ‘I-N-D-I-P-E-N-D-E-N-C-
E’ properly. Referring to the famous story ‘Swadhinata’ or
‘Independence’ written in Bengali by respected Balaichnad ‘Banaful’
Mukherjee, we find a character explaining the meaning of ‘freedom’
in a very sweet way. The character says that the word Freedom
means the ability ‘by virtue of which one can offer others the best
while sacrificing on his/her own part by keeping away the worse for
him/her.’
Can we not suffer a slight loss and imbibe the true essence of
Freedom? After all, if not good citizens, it at least makes us possess
an upright character.
Following lines of Gandhiji’s favorite bhajan in Gujarati ‘Vaishnav
Jan Toh’ leads us towards that path:-
“વણ લોભી ને કપટ રહિત છે,
કામ ક્રોધ નિવાર્યાં રે
ભણે નરસૈયો તેનું દર્શન કરતાં
કુળ એકોતેર તાર્યાં રે…”
This loosely translates to:-“ They have forsaken greed and deceit,
They stay afar from desire and anger, Narsinh says: I’d be grateful to
meet such a soul, Whose virtue liberates their entire lineage.”
Taking this message of being a bit more truthful, patient,
compassionate, kind, tolerant and most importantly happy about
our own character, we must proceed further on the way of our life
freed from slavery.
