Ever Changing Freedom

I am tired of the ugly things in life. Thats why this is gonna be a happy blog. Thoughtful and positive yes. Unhappy ...NO.

Therefore I have kind of stuck to neutral topics ...things that one would love till now. Stuff like food, drinks...basically 'bring a smile on your face' thingies.

So today I continue in a Nation swelling with pride and happiness. A pride and happiness thorroughly justified in the emerging 3 days, 4 night weekend coming up. All government and private sector employees will be paid during this period and all trade and businessmen will do brisk business.

The occassions are nebulous...at best preserved in the back of our consciousness, but the pleasure genuine. Janmashtmi is, on the whole, more important than Indipendence day, the latter however being more widely celebrated in its geographic extent.

Nehru said, 'Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny....the time has come to redeem that pledge'...well have we kept that pledge? ...in many ways we have.

We are a Free country. Politically and Economically. But the time has come to fight another battle. The battle to free us from the brand of Political and Economic freedom that we have, from the disparity we suffer. The time has come to ask...Has the freedom we have really made a difference?

I presume it has. I was not born during the occupation and so I dont know the emotional hassles of being secondary in my own country. Moreover I was born into what may be considered a Socially elevated family (if not an economically elevated one). To add to it, we were not exactly hand to mouth. Therefore I was a part of the new Elite. The Elite that had taken the place of the Raj ...to create a new order....a new Raj. I must confess though...There were thousands, nay, millions of people around me, not so lucky as me, who were secondary...any which way you look at it. And this realization of mine was acute from a very early age.

Our house in Kolkata had 2 entrances. One a delapidated side door that led to the backyard, and the other, a grand entry for cars that led to a stairway into the drawing room. The side entry was used just once a day. A jamadar would come and knock and the servant girl would go and open the door. This Jamadar with a broom tail (quite literally) would go into the backyard and then take the back intrances to the bathrooms. He would clean up, take the refuse and leave the same he came. The maid servant would directly go into her bath and be allowed into the house after that.

We were not so much as allowed to go near the sweeper man. After all, the sweeper man was an untouchable. He and his ilk were unclean. In fact, these were a subhuman race...descended of the lowest of the low. They never had any chance in hell of rising above subhuman as their children would be from the same dirty seed as them.

That has changed. At least in the urban context. There has been significant changes in the Rural India as well. The Brahmin heartland of India has a seen a significant revolution that has seen the rise of the opressed classes. They have entered the earlier Brahminical bastions of Politics and Administration and have made significant progress in terms of individual property and community. Problem is that soon as these people become empowered, they become elitist. The irony is that its their origins themselves that make them elitist. They wear their untouchability like a badge and garner votes from the silent majority. They give long discourses on how to break the grip and retire back to their marble palaces and big cars. I am sure they, in their ivory palaces, have a different entry point for sweepers as well.

So nothing much has changed. We have created a new Layer of Noveu Brahmins who are in many ways even more exploitative, as they dont have the generations of education that the erstwhile higher classes have gone through. One would see this as a natural process of National Evolution and one may be right. The next generation of the New Brahmins, will be not so crass and in your face and would be capable of taking clean sophisticated decissions. These decissions, one hopes will open the road for even Newer Brahminism. There will be new graduates to the Elites ..who will reduce the span of the underprivilaged and continue on the path of unsophisticated, unplanned progress which will eventually destroy the decaying social order and a create a new ruling class in the generations to come. They will be the Brahmins of the new age espousing a new freedom that will run out of fashion eventually till newer Brahmins cause a social catharsis..

This cycle will continue till the utopian death of class politics. Which, with all due respect to the changing liberal elites, is not possible, because, all things on par, we will always need a ruling and a ruled class. There will always be parties, organisations, people, groups etc who will be more equal than others ...who will controle the food that hits our table and the safety we need at home and the healthcare we get in our old age. These people will always be elitist, till they fall to the new order.

Hell...Freedom is cool...phew....Its momentary, utopian and ever changing....That gives each one of us the freedom to celebrate our indipendence from a different cause in each succesive year. The Raj is irrelevant...let us celebrate our Indipence Day as a symbol of freedom ... from anything at all...