Searching for the word ‘freedom’ in the dictionary offers us a literal meaning of the word. But seldom a person can grasp the real and the actual meaning of the word without turning over the countless pages of history and philosophy. Freedom is not just equal to not being chained or not being locked in a dungeon. It’s also not just equal to not be under foreign rule. It has countless definitions and types. The history is ravaged with innumerable counts of wars and conflicts for this one very word, freedom.

“Freedom is my birth right and I shall have it”. We all know this was spoken by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. But 9 out of 10 would conceptualize that the ‘freedom’ being talked here as the independence of India. Which is not wrong, but not completely correct even. Freedom is that very thing an animal craves for when its basic needs of air, water and food has been taken care of. Same with humans too. While air, water and foods are tangible things which can be felt and touched, freedom is an idea. Still, we see that even animals keep it in their top priority just below the basic needs of survival. So, the question we need to ask ourselves, is an idea which is so much important to even the animals can by understood by just a textbook definition. So, what is freedom? I am sorry my literary skills are not that advanced to sum it up in a single sentence. But I produce before you a phrase by French philosopher Voltaire. It does not tell us what it means but tells us how it is. The phrase goes like this 

“I do not agree to you, but I shall defend to death your right to say it” 

In a sentence the author has so beautifully told us how to be free and also how not to curb freedom of others. Freedom means to stay wherever you want, do whatever you want, say whatever you want but with a basic condition that is without invading freedom of others. It means to be able to be say whatever you want against anyone or anything the criteria being it should be the truth or a well-informed opinion, not an intentional false defamation. It means to be free to criticize religion, free to wear your choice of clothes, free to go any place you want, free to watch any kind of movie, free to read any book you want, free to do anything without any person or government or an organization ordering you to stop it. Freedom is to not to be photographed in malls with you do your shopping. That’s the kind of freedom I am talking about. Unless you are hurting or curbing someone else’s rights, you should not be stopped by anyone or any entity.

Without freedom, life will be out of our lives. Freedom can be divided mainly into three categories. Political freedom, social freedom and economical freedom. Political freedom though very difficult to attain is still easier to realize as its something you and I can see directly. The other two, social and economic are the ones which are very difficult to attain. We got political freedom from British Raj 60 years ago but we are still lagging in the social front a lot as here there’s no clear cut entity from which we have to win it. We ourselves are the problem as well as the solution. Our reluctance to accept others freedom is what curbs our freedom as well. When we demand reservations based on castes, when we want quotas, when we discriminate based on religion, when we get married after matching religion, caste, and the gotras we are never realizing social freedom.  One essential tenet of freedom is equality. In a way, freedom and equality can be one and the same. Equality meaning all humans are treated equal with no regard to their colour, religion, race, sex, caste or any god damn criteria that is used to divide people. Needless to say, this kind of equality is still not realized. Without such equality, the democracy is not realized. Please understand that democracy does not simply mean having a right to cast votes. It means freedom and equality to each one of the citizens. Freedom and equality as described above.

Lastly, coming to economic freedom, we can try to understand it as a freedom where the citizenry earn as much so as to not become economic slaves. It can mean to have at least that much of finances to be free able to enjoy and grant the other two freedoms, ie. The political and the social. Its not a rule but a well observed phenomenon that financially sound people are able to demand more for themselves. Thus in a way, economic freedom becomes a facilitator of the realization of political and social freedom. You may always seem to notice that those places which are inhabited by relatively good earning group have considerable fewer rates of corruption and crime. All corruption and crimes are mostly the battle for resources i.e. the battle for money i.e. the competition for prosperity. So, when people are financially well off, the other freedoms are very soon attained.

Freedom is the very platform on which every other aspect of a democracy stands and therefore, it’s the single most aspect of society which must be protected at all costs.