A few days back a politico-philosophical debate enraged in this very site as to who is to be blamed for innocent civilian deaths in course of a military operation, the political masters or the military executioners. The debate however did not encompass another very important facet of the free democratic nations, the role of citizens. If we are men of free nation and it’s with our free will we elect our representatives to rule our nations on our behalf, are we too not party to any crime done by our representatives. If we were to ask someone (politicians) kill on our behalf, and the killer (Military) is being trained and armed by money provided by us, aren’t we guilty in part for the crime that he commits. Military heads are accountable to their political masters and they in turn to the citizens of the nations they represent. It seldom happens in a democratic set up that a nation goes into war or undertakes military operations without public will in its favor.

The first Irony of the political freedom is the very logic of democracy¹ which just seeks a 50% + 1 as the mandatory majority for any democratic resolution to get through. Even though this tyranny of majority on the free will of the minority defies all logic of individual liberty and freedom, it is still hailed as one of the most fair and just political systems which at any time represents will of the majority of its citizens. For instance we may have voted against the present regime of government, but we still honor outcome of a democratic contest and accept its decision as our own. In American context Barak Obama² is president of each and every American irrespective of whom they voted in the election. The moment we accept this as a fact and with our free will decides to follow and exercise democracy, we cannot exonerate ourselves thereafter from consequence of any decision our representatives take on our behalf. Citizens of nations under monarchies, or military dictatorship or for that matter under a communist regimes, where irrespective of the civic freedom, political freedom is considerable negligible, can feign away from this responsibility. It is so that Iraqi citizens cannot be held responsible for the gulf war but American citizens have to shoulder their part of responsibility for the event. It can thus be stated that freedom is a great privilege and power and with it comes great responsibility.

Let us now examine the nature of freedom, what is its essence, what really constitutes our idea of freedom and how it manifests in our day to day life and society. If you equate freedom to lawlessness, some kind of manifestation of wild, where there are no laws no regulations to follow, we would arrive at rather dubious conclusions out of it. Many war trodden countries of Africa where civic administration has completely collapsed, there exist no civic laws for that matter no traffic laws. You don’t have to stop at every red light that you encounter on the road, and can even get away with a murder for that matter. Will it be then prudent to state that citizens of these seemingly lawless countries enjoy more freedom than countries with democratic set ups like India or America? The answer is an obvious no, and as to why these civic laws and regulations do not infringe our freedom is simply because these laws exist as an exercise of free will and rationality at the first place. As rational human beings we felt the need for these laws and so it was imposed on ourselves and our society. In addition we reserve the rights to amend or remove the laws that are found to be inappropriate or have out lived its utility. We have choice with these laws but once in place we need to follow them, similarly we do have choice with our governance, but once in place we have to bear with it till its allocated period in office is over. There are provisions of impeachments and dissolution of government available in democratic set ups, It is however a rather difficult task and quite out of hand with respect to an ordinary citizen.

The second Irony of democratic political freedom is that although we do have a choice, we do not have choice of action but merely choice of electing representatives who would thereafter act on our behalf. Even though governments do try and sway the public opinion in their favor over major issues of national interest, it is merely a political compulsion rather than political necessity. Political freedom thus essentially manifests in the truest sense in a very brief window. It is the time when we exercise our liberty to choose our representatives and empower them to take decisions on our behalf. Thereafter public opinion acts merely as a subtle pressure on the political forum.

Idealistically we can at this point denounce the very concept of democratic political freedom, and argue that we have indeed got very little on the name of freedom.³ Pragmatically however we all are aware that democracy is here to stay. It has established itself as one of the most stable and effective forms of governance. Society is not yet grown to accept anarchy and dissolution of state as a viable solution. If we are to accept this fact then the only solution we are left with is to revitalize and strengthen democracies. Find means to plug the loopholes existing in the system and make it as foolproof and workable as possible.

At this juncture let us re-examine our idea of freedom. If we dissect our concept of freedom we would realize that it finally manifests merely as some choices that we get to make. How dimensionless free will gets limited to freedom to make certain choice would be a philosophical ordeal for us to fathom. It is also perhaps beyond the scope of this article, but what needs to be crucially examined is if the choices that we finally make are rational and a legitimate exercise of free will. Although lots of studies exist on mind and its nature both in philosophy and psychology, one that especially pertains to our context is Hegelian dialectics named after Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel a nineteenth century philosopher. He in his philosophical work examined the very nature of human reality as a prelude to understanding human choices emanating out of it. Hegelian dialectics state that our reality consist of two essential part a thesis (what it is subset) and an antithesis (what it is not subset) and our idea of reality a synthesis (a superset) of both. It applies to both perceptual reality and conceptual reality that our minds can figure. For instance idea of color red is incomplete without having an idea of both what red color is and what it is not. If you see everything red you cannot distinguish it from any other color. A blind man is presumed to see everything dark or black, but a person who is born blind cannot explain the concept of darkness, for he has never seen any light to distinguish his perception as one of darkness. Conceptual realities to same phenomenon exists our idea of good is incomplete without an idea of bad. That is if there is no conception of bad there is no conception of good either. A good example for this would be movies of super heroes. The moment we create a super hero we need to create a super villain to validate his existence. What use is spider man if he was to just deal with petty thieves and burglars who are no match to his powers. Only through induction of a super villain and his triumph over this villain can we really accept him as a super hero. Almost every religion conceived the idea of bad and evil the moment they conceived the idea of good and God. Without dwelling in further detail this duality or dichotomy of our reality let us examine its implication on our idea of freedom and choices that we tend to make.

The applied studies of this concept are popularly known as perception management also quite infamously known as problem- reaction-solution among conspiracy theorist. The point however is not how extensively it has been used the state but the viability of the whole idea and its implication on our freedom. If we are to be denied any part of the information both from thesis or antithesis front our perception of reality will alter dramatically. Our perception further has lacunae which are known in psychological parlance as availability heuristics and confirmation bias. Simply put our minds have a tendency to put one and one together at the first available opportunity and thereafter have a tendency to stick to this idea even when presented with contradicting information. This phenomenon is also brought forth in the popular idiom ‘First impression is the last impression’.
Both America and India, the strongest and the largest democracies in the world have had instances of 9/11 and 26/11⁴ respectively wherein there was an equal failure in the part of intelligence administration and also at the later stages states ability to tackle a developing disaster. The perception of the public was however managed away from these glaring failures of state administration to external enemies, on whom the whole blame was fixed. There is so much of red tape-ism which regulates and at times manages the flow of information between the state and its citizens that it is practically possible for the state to actually do what these conspiracy theorist claim.

How is it then that we can really envisage a more enduring freedom for ourselves?⁵ The answer lies in slowly dis-empowering the state. To start with government must have no control over the media. Media must not be state run at all as far as possible and it must be kept insulated from other instruments of state. Media itself however has to rise to the need of the hour and act in an utmost responsible manner. In addition all other instruments of state like judiciary, policing and investigation must be privatised or private players must also be included to prevent state from manipulating these instruments to get public perception in their favour.

It is very necessary at this juncture that we make some modifications to our idea of freedom itself. Most of us tend to carry an 18th century baggage with respect to this concept. To many a people, slavery is when one is chained and made to work like an animal and relatively anything else is more or less freedom. Many others misinterpret self governance to freedom. To most Indians, India was free before the English came and free thereafter. Not many are able to really apply logic and explain how is it that a rule of Indian monarchic ruler better than rule of queen of Britain. Post independence which is also termed as freedom struggle, India happened to inherit the concept of democracy from Britain itself. It is what is now celebrated as the coveted freedom by most. If we have to make progress towards ensuring that our so called freedom has some real viability. If we have our choices marked out clear in light of reason and justice and not on some manipulated emotional or non consequential agenda brought forth by political parties to sway our judgment, we have to first admit the limitation and nature of freedom that have in our hand and thereafter make endeavor to improve upon it by slowly dis-empowering the state and reducing its power to more manageable limits. At this moment we are far away from it and in fact moving in opposite direction. The new anti terror laws in India and patriotic acts⁶ in America are instances of such infringement of our freedom to further incapacitating levels. It is for us to decide which way we would like to move and exercise our choice before we are left with none.

1. Impasse of Democracy, Voting is not a solution, it is a Killer [↩]
2. Killing Instinct of President,Barack Obama [↩]
3. Need of Individual Autonomy,Reason for Liberty [↩]
4. Terrorist attack on Hotel Taj, 26/11/08 [↩]
5. Sovereign Citizen, Sovereign state [↩]
6. UAPA and Patriot Act, Military Keynesianism [↩]