In the last column I touched upon the embeddedness of the idea of freedom in the colonial context. In simpler terms, in the general perception, the moment of attaining freedom is essentially tied up with the colonial era, during which the natives had been reduced to colonised subjects.

With the exit of the colonial power immediately after the World War II, the interface of the colonised with the moment to urge and aspire for freedom comes to peroration. For us, August 14, 1947, as we are led to believe, was the day when the striving for freedom ended.

Thus, we as well as the Indians are free ever since. But a deeper probe may lead us to contest such a facile and simplistic understanding of one of the most tangled and complex phenomena that a human is compelled to contend with.

The birth of a nation and a country denotes doing away with just one strand among many which deny us our freedom. The factors constraining the human freedom keep crystalising, making the endeavour to seek and urge freedom into a constant tussle between the forces of control and those aspiring freedom.

That tussle goes on ad infinitum. When a person sheds off certain chains curbing his/her freedom, some new constraints crop up and that process never stops. Therefore, it is imperative to pluralise our perception of ‘freedom’ instead of limiting it to the colonial dispensation. Humans are as much a need in need of freedom after colonialism as they were under colonialism.

The struggle for freedom against colonial masters is meant only for a class that forms the upper crust of the collectivity. In this struggle, as it were, the individual hardly counts. I wonder how many times the rights of the individual were mentioned in the freedom discourse against the British.

As I said in a write-up prior to this one, the rights of an individual were considered as something that might imperil the prospects of independence. But I will take up freedom as the fundamental right of the individual after inviting the attention of the reader to an aspect which has not been conceptualised thoroughly. That is the concern for the future if India remained united which worried the Muslim ashraaf, a factor that to my reckoning is quite unique as far as the struggle of the Northern Indian Muslims for freedom was concerned.

While dilating on this aspect what is worth highlighting is the premonition of the Muslim ashraaf of the minority provinces about the future in case India remained united, held out for them. Their projection about the future was nothing but the presentiment of being subjugated by the Hindu majority, which they found extremely difficult to withstand, since they had ruled India for 800 years.

They detested the prospect of a Hindu rule far more than being colonised by the British. Getting rid of the British did not stir up any sense of urgency except among the Deobandi ulema. Muslim ashraaf were not bothered if the British stayed on for a bit longer. What worried them beyond measure was the likelihood of living under a Hindu rule.

That being so, the motivation for freedom among the Muslim ashraaf had little reference to the past experience, it was the fear that the future held which stirred them into action and they launched a struggle for a separate homeland. I am not aware of any other instance whereby the urge for freedom lies somewhere in the ‘future’ and not in the past-experience. If at all past played some role in their quest for freedom, it was not as much as the role of the future. This indeed makes the struggle for Pakistan unique and different.

Later developments which unfolded in India, particularly in the wake of the ascendancy of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and Narendra Modi as its leader, the premonition of the Muslim ashraaf stands vindicated. The pure Hindu interpretation of Indian nationalism has effectively squeezed the Muslims out of the equation. Now when the likes of Arif Muhammad Khan (Muslim politician of India and ultra nationalist) still argue favourably and hold hopes for India, one tends to feel for their naivety. In India Muslims have been denied rights as a collective; the rights and freedom for the Muslim individual are a distant dream.

I have put quite a bit of emphasis on the freedom of the individual in this as well as in the previous write-up. But the question which needs to be deliberated upon with utmost earnestness is, whether the freedom for the individual is at all possible?

The answer is elusive because in all philosophies and social systems one can decipher there is a tangible prioritisation for the collective. The individual has been given the right to exercise his freedom within the perimeters set by the collective. The 1968 movement that began in the European universities and cast considerable influence on American academia called for the freedom of the individual. It also had a rub from the existentialist philosophy.

Despite all the claims of post-modernity and existentialism, freedom for the individual remains elusive as ever. Before saying anything, one has to take into account myriad pre-conditions or insinuations to being a misogynist, a racist, an extremist, prejudiced or an Islamic fundamentalist. One has also to be mindful not to say anything against Zionism because it may have serious consequences. People raised up in this milieu, find it hard to condone gay rights but that phenomenon is gaining acceptability world-wide.

Young Pakistanis have started thinking on the same lines. Disagreement on these issues tends to bring condemnation and not criticism, which is in fact a violation of the freedom that individual should have in the 21^st century. I want an informed discussion on this aspect so that the cobwebs of confusion regarding these inhibitions, spun out by post modernity can be dusted off.