Freedom, perhaps the world’s most celebrated word. In the name of freedom, revolutions have occurred, nations have been built, and many sacrifices have been made. Every year somewhere in the world, a country celebrates its independence with honour and zeal. Yet amid all these celebrations, one question still haunts me: is the world truly free? Are we celebrating the freedom of nations or the freedom of human beings?
Recently, we witnessed a major protest in India where Sonam Wangchuk, an engineer, educator, and climate activist, had to sit on a hunger strike only to make the government realise its accountability towards its public. He sat on a 26-day hunger strike; the question is why it took so long for the government to respond. I see him only as a human being who was just asking for his rights and holding the government accountable. The people of an independent state only want to be heard and respected. Is that too much to ask from an independent state?
This incident has created chaos in my mind: why must a citizen risk his life to make the state listen? A hunger strike is not only a protest but an act of desperation. When a person chooses hunger, he is using his own body as a final instrument to force the state to listen to him. Freedom can be achieved if the state gives priority to its public’s demands and if people are heard without doing any protests or risking their lives.
We have always equated independence with freedom, but is it so? A country may become independent, have its government, its president, its flag, but inside the borders of this state, there will still be people who do not have freedom. The people will continue to live in fear, hunger, and injustice because these issues are not solved by independence. Thus, the freedom of the people can be achieved only when they have independence. Only then can the people rise and speak out. Maybe we have been thinking about the wrong question all along. We ask whether a country is free. But I want to ask: is the world truly free? The answer is difficult to accept!
How can we call this a free world when wars continue to uproot entire generations? Be it Sudan, where families are surviving humanitarian crises. Be it Gaza, where civilians wake up each day uncertain of their lives. A world where millions of people have been displaced. Freedom means little when survival becomes a daily struggle. These tragedies are a reminder that the absence of colonial rule doesn’t mean human freedom.
Also, the absence of war is not enough to declare a society free. Freedom is stolen in many ways. When a child is deprived of education, which is his basic right, freedom is stolen from him. When families sleep in hunger despite living in a resource-rich “independent” state, freedom is stolen from them. When individuals are judged based on their religion and ethnicity, freedom is stolen from them. When one is forced to stop expressing his opinion, freedom is stolen from him. Those children and families cannot celebrate freedom. I remembered the words of an old man struggling to survive in his “independent” state: “For the poor, freedom is no different from slavery.”
In the world, people still gather in streets only to be heard. This means that the government has failed to address the issue of its population. And the situation has gone so much worse that there is a need for protests. And if people do protest, then the government silences their voices. If the state is independent, then why don’t its people have freedom of speech? Why are innocent lives spared?
Wangchuk’s protest reminds us of peaceful resistance. His peaceful 26-day hunger strike is a symbol that protests are not synonymous with violence. This is a notable aspect of Wangchuk’s protest: he did not occupy any government building or public institution; instead, he made his own body a site of protest. The right to protest is not a threat to democracy when conducted peacefully. A citizen who questions the government is not always a traitor; he is not challenging the state; instead, he is reminding the state of its unfinished promises of freedom.
This is why I believe that we have misunderstood freedom. We have reduced it to a date on a calendar. We count the years since nations became independent but rarely ask whether people have freedom. Freedom is far greater than political sovereignty. It is freedom to live without fear. Freedom to speak without being silenced. Freedom to eat without worrying about tomorrow. The freedom to learn, to think out of the box, and to dream.
Until no child is deprived of education, until no one is deprived of food, until no family is forced to leave their home due to war, until no community is ignored because of who they are, until no person lives without fear, our celebrations and speeches of freedom will remain incomplete. So, before we ask whether a nation is free or not, perhaps we should ask: In the name of freedom, have we truly made the world free?
In the name of freedom, Rabindranath Tagore envisioned a world:
Where the mind is without fear, and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
-Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
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Syeda Farani Fatima is an undergraduate student of International Relations at the International Islamic University of Islamabad, with a strong interest in anti-corruption, counter-terrorism and geopolitics. Strongly committed to fighting corruption, terrorism, and supporting national reform through research and public service.
