[ultimate_heading main_heading=”Nidhi Sharma on Independence” main_heading_color=”#1e73be” sub_heading_color=”#8224e3″ spacer=”line_with_icon” spacer_position=”bottom” line_style=”dotted” line_height=”1″ line_color=”#1e73be” icon_type=”custom” icon_img=”id^48|url^http://ashvamegh.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Ashvamegh-ICO.jpg|caption^null|alt^Ashvamegh Journal Icon|title^Ashvamegh ICO|description^null” img_width=”48″ main_heading_style=”font-weight:bold;” main_heading_font_size=”desktop:34px;” line_width=”3″]freedom to respect with a freedom to be respected…[/ultimate_heading]
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains,but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” Nelson Mandela
Freedom has many different meanings in different aspects of life. To cite few examples, let us take some situations: in a crowded place, a child is safe when he is holding the hands of his father. That doesn’t mean that he is not free. Same freedom, we can relate to Sita; she was free as well as safe within the Lakshman rekha and we all are aware what happened the moment she came out of it. In present day scenario, we may think that Traffic Rules curtail freedom of the driver. But can we avoid it? Nobody can be totally free as he/she desires. What the need of the hour is a kind of Responsible Freedom.
Freedom to respect others.
Freedom to protect others.
Freedom to love others.
And at the same time
Freedom to be loved,
Freedom to be protected,
Freedom to be respected.
The question that arises here is that, are we really loved, protected and respected today? Even after 69 years of achieving freedom, we cling on to some of the worst issues faced by our society from age-old prejudices of caste, religion, honour killings and dowry etc. It is our duty to share the responsibility of eradicating these evils and thus working towards a better nation. To achieve it, first of all, we will have to free ourselves from the chains that bind our soul. Only a person whose soul is free from malice, fear and prejudices can be a source of external freedom to others. That means first and foremost what we need is internal freedom. The real freedom is the freedom of the mind… The one who experience that freedom will surely shine in this world. So this INDEPENDENCE DAY lets be free…
As Rabindra Nath Tagore puts it in his wonderfully amazing words :
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
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
