Searching for freedom after freedom, the dream is still there

Professor Manoj Kumar Jha
The twentieth century began with gunpowder and shackles. Colonialism was at its peak, three-quarters of the world's people were 'owned' by another country, and then two world wars did what had never been possible before: the industrial production of death: gas chambers, carpet bombing, Hiroshima. Famines created by policies, not nature. Divisions whose lines were drawn on a map by a distant officer and whose blood was shed by our cities and villages. Amid this rubble, humanity carved a dream and named this dream the coming century. The 21st century was not just a date on the calendar, it was a horizon. a promise It was said that when this century comes, wars will be a thing of the past, hunger will be a museum to see and understand, every child will be educated, every sick will be cured, and machines will free man from the chains of labor and give him leisure for art and contemplation. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Alma Ata's pledge that "health for all by the year 2000", colonial freedom, the concept of the welfare state were all different names of the same horizon. This dream was not only in manifestos, it was mixed in the atmosphere of our popular imagination. 2001: A Space Odyssey made the century digit synonymous with the future. And here we are? There were flying cars and robots in the science fiction stories of Nandan, Prag and Champak, every kid in the school wrote an essay on "India in the year 2000" at one time or another. Doordarshan's screen showed an India that was becoming literate, vaccinating, building canals and satellites together. "Gharibi Hatau" was certainly a slogan, but behind it there was also a real collective aspiration. At the turn of the century, the Internet came along and it was said that the world was now a village, knowledge was free, and power would have no secrets left to hide from the public. Today, after a quarter of a century has passed, the most disconcerting thing is not that our dreams have not come true. The disturbing thing is that the dreams are the same. Perhaps this is the real meaning of "those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it". We understand that history only returns in the form of tragedies, war, hatred, eviction. But it also returns in the form of its unfulfilled desires. Each generation raises the same demands anew, realizing that it is asking for something new. And it would be wrong to say that there has not been progress. Happened and happened a lot. The average age has increased, smallpox has been eradicated, famines have become rare, billions of people have been lifted out of extreme poverty, and there is a computer in every pocket. But the strange thing is that despite all these material achievements, we are not in a better place. Prosperity has increased and insecurity has also increased, as connectivity has increased, so has loneliness. Information increased and understanding decreased. We got the resources, but lost the purpose. At the root of this inconsistency is one thing: man is no longer an end in himself, he has been made a means to someone else's end. For politics, the voter is a number, an equation, a mob that can be agitated. To the market that consumer is a wallet, a borrowing capacity, a targeted ad. And for technology it is even less than just attention, which can be fragmented and auctioned off in seconds, and data, which can be used against itself without its consent. The three together create a world where choices are numerous, but freedom is few. Which brand, which app, which platform is the freedom to choose; But almost no freedom to set the terms of your work, the atmosphere of your city, the curriculum of your children, the pace of your time. An algorithm hires the gig worker and an algorithm fires him, and he can't even appeal because there's no human to argue with. This is the greatest poverty of our age, not the lack of resources, but the lack of authority. The feeling that whatever is happening, is happening to us; We are not doing it ourselves. The midnight promise that we will now meet our destiny, and Gandhi's phrase to wipe every tear from every eye, we have made them the decoration of memorial days, not part of our practical priorities. Ambedkar had warned that since January 26, 1950, we are entering a paradox: in politics, one person, one vote; But the value of a person in social and economic life is not the same. That contradiction is still with us today. And democracy? It is not just an election name. They are debate, room for dissent, the autonomy of institutions, the right to information, and the trust that questioning power will not come at a price. On these measures, our performance across parties and eras combined has been uneven. The gap between when the citizen turns into the crowd and when the crowd becomes the beneficiary remains to be bridged. Our meeting with destiny is still incomplete.
So what is the positive agenda of this century? If the dreams are the same, at least the path must be new. I see four points. First, justice, not mercy. The facility given to the poor is not charity, it is his right. The language of "free eating" must be rejected. Education, health, nutrition, housing and a decent wage are rights, not favors. Another redistribution. Just making the cake bigger won't work, the way it's distributed has to change too. Adequate taxes on wealth and inheritance, access to land, massive investment in public services, and protection of common resources, water, forests, spectrum, data from private appropriation. Third, the restoration of human sovereignty. The new question of this century is that when machines start thinking, what will be left for man? The answer is not to stop the technology, but to determine who owns its power. The right to your attention, the right to your data, the right to appeal against an algorithm's decision, the right to be unavailable after work. And above all, work in which man finds room to use his intellect and creativity. Fourth, the supremacy of society. The debate of the last century was caught between two poles: the state or the market. Both are top-down systems, both transform the human into a unit. The third pole is the co-operative society, the union, the panchayat, the neighborhood committee, the public library, the university, the peasant organization, all those places where people do something together without profit and without order. This was the original meaning of Swaraj—not merely changing the ruler, but establishing one's own rule. Finally: Freedom is not a date, it is a continuous process. What was achieved in 1947 was an opportunity, not a fulfillment. Every generation has to fight this battle anew, sometimes against colonialism, sometimes against inequality, and today against the hidden forces that want to turn us into consumers, spectators, and mere data.
Perhaps the true celebration is to remember, while waving the tricolor, that the dream is still there, and therefore alive.