The Paradox of Freedom and Free Nation

Thinking freedom is an uneasy experience. Desire for freedom is endless. Everyone wants more freedom. But paradoxically, all political regimes proclaim that they are pro freedom. Even when the despotic nature of the regime is obvious to any keen observer. Freedom, therefore, may be denied in practice but it is never denied as a fundamental value of human existence. Freedom does not seem to have any negative connotation in our political discourse. It is a goal to be achieved or dream to be realized. But when we examine our daily life, freedom appears to be a vacuous term. Our lives seem to be regulated through freedom. We are disciplined by governing of our freedoms

. Michel Foucault calls this power of governance of life as governmentality. Under this mode of power, freedom appears to have become the first casualty. We have wars that seem to take upon themselves to advance the cause of freedom. Terrorists are constantly viewed as enemies of freedom. It appears that in many ways, we are made to walk into our own unfreedoms. Freedom seems to have become an ideology in Zizeken sense. Thus, it becomes a cover for the unfreedoms that are being forced on us.

Under the guise of protection of freedom, we can see how freedom is being abused. Strong laws are passed that curb the freedom of an individual in the name of protection of the freedom and security of the nation. We do have a deep sense that something is wrong with this vision of freedom. In our country this Western notion ‘enemies of freedom’ have become enemies of the nation. Freedom then becomes the freedom our nation. It has also become a freedom of a religion. In the name of a free nation, freedom of a religion, we then appear to tolerate violence and injustice upon our fellow human being who are also citizens of our country.

Nationalism, when cocktailed with a faith becomes an ideology that blinds us. We are, then, being govern through regulation of our freedom. Our freedom to eat, dress and even to marry is restricted. Power operates over our bodies directing us what to eat, what to dress and whom to marry etc. Foucault calls this form of power as biopower. In name of protection of our freedom, it appears that we are pushed towards unfeedoms. It means forces that prescribe us what to eat, wear, whom to marry or even how to love our nation take upon them the freedom that gives them power to restrict our freedom. Rightwing forces and rightwing politics have power over our freedom. This is constructed and maintained by a distinct power-knowledge equation of the upper caste.

We seem to have begun to love the restriction of our freedom. Freedom has truly become an ideology. This means the imposition of the eating , dressing and loving-making regimes on us have taken away our self-determination. We do seem to know it. This appropriation of freedom to themselves takes place in the act of denial of freedom to us. While the Hindutva forces enforce regimes of eating, regimes of dress codes, regimes of marriage as well as regimes of love of the nation, in the very act of this enforcement, they appropriate a freedom that stays above the regimes that they bind upon the people.

The ideal of freedom has become the instrument of domination. Therefore, the question of our freedom never really arise. This is why even in the demise of freedom, we feel that we are free. While the West uses freedom as form of legitimation of practices that have little or nothing to do with freedom, we in India seem to use nationalism as a form of legitimation of acts that on profound scrutiny may appear to be fully anti-national. Deeper examination of our discourses around freedom and nationalism might manifest our hypocrisy.

Freedom and nationalism has become a master signifier in Lacanian sense and we make what we want to make of it. For Lacan the master signifier is an empty signifier that gets its content from outside. The empty signifiers like freedom and nationalism, or free nation have become a nodal points of our fantasies. This is why in the name of freedom or free nation, we seem to faulter into a tyranny of the majority, conformist violence, inter-caste or religious oppression , political witch hunt, riots and ethnic cleansing . Hence, it is for us to discern how violence, oppression and injustice that takes place in the name of freedom as well as a free nation.

Ritual of violence and oppression that are offered on the altar of freedom and free nation have to bee interrogated. Here we may follow Foucault who does not look for some utopian terrain and time that will allow true freedom to shine. Rather, we may ask: Under the given condition of unfreedoms in what is proclaimed as a ‘ free nation’ , we can ask, ‘what possibilities do we have for freedom ?’ We have to seek rebellious ways of practicing freedom in our ‘unfree nation’ that is pushing us towards violence and hate in reach of more free future .

In order to dis-mental the regimes that oppress people in the name of freedom and free nation, we have to examine the relation of knowledge and power. Contestation of this knowledge-power equation, we might be able to produce conditions that enables humans to flourish in freedom. We have an urgent challenge at our hands. We do not act, we might have Giogio Agamben’s , Homo Sacer walking the lanes of our country. The signs of such a Homo Sacer is already visible in the denial of what may be called good life to several legitimate citizens of our country.

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