FREEDOM TO PURSUE PERSONAL NEEDS AND WANTS

This year we are celebrating the seventy second anniversary after gaining independence. It is, therefore, high time now to contemplate as to whether we have made all efforts to make the best use of the independence which our forefathers have won not easily but after struggling much. It was not a gift of God or a donation but was something our forefathers wrestled from the foreigners. We are the legitimate owners of our motherland. Foreigners invaded and snatched it from us.

They were neither the heirs nor the owners of our country. Hence, it was the responsibility on their part to hand over to us everything which was and which is our own. What they have handed over to us on February 4, 1948 was a country which had been exploited. It was something like the refuse of what had been chewed. We were required to rebuild our country to satisfy ourselves that we are truly independent.

THE TRUE MEANING OF INDEPENDENCE

According to the free encyclopedia independence is a condition of a country, nation or a state in which the residents and the population or some portion thereof exercise self government over its territory. J.r.turner defines the term independence as “the freedom to separate ourselves from personal ideologies and intellectually challenge to see the full scope of an issue in order to find real solutions for the good of the whole .” independence means that we must not depend on the opinions of others but we should rely on factual issues and actions of the individuals and our governments.

UNO’S DEPENDENCE OF NATIONS BELONGED TO BRITISH EMPIRE

In a way the UNO is an organization established in order to keep the countries of the British Empire still dependent. Non aligned movement was set up by countries which wished to stand on their own feet without being dependent on big powers. The first large scale AsianAfrican Conference, also known as the Bandung Conference was a meeting of Asian-african states of which had gained independence newly. It took place from April 18 to 25, 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. The twenty nine countries which participated in the Bandung Conference represented nearly one fourth of the world’s land surface and a population of 1.5 billion. The conference was organized by Burma, India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The conference’s stated aims were to promote Afro-asian economic and cultural cooperation and oppose colonialism or neo-colonization.

INDEPENDENCE

Further, independence means the state of choosing to empower ourselves with the information to make our own minds independently. According to another definition independence means the freedom to create a world or society in which the people can perceive nations through a satellite view rather than a microscope view and make value judgments based on what is good for the future rather than for the present. True independence means recognizing that every type of thought and belief system has something to teach, to offer and if we learn from those in our world our chances of creating a real change for the betterment of all will be increased. Wisdom demands that we should further own independence by freeing our self from the prison of personal experience by embracing realities other than our own and thereby freeing our self from the shackles of ignorance. This is the quality of being independent, freedom from dependence and exemption from reliance on or controlled by others. This is the state of self-subsistence or maintenance, direction of one’s own affairs without unnecessary interference which provides sufficient means for a comfortable livelihood.

PEOPLE’S RIGHTS

In a sense independence is an opportunity for the people to avail of their rights. Jurists and thinkers of France having based on the 1789 Declaration and afterwards have enumerated four rights i.e. i. The right to be treated equally with others in the eye of law and all legislative acts, ii. The right to be treated equally with others in matters of Justice and in the courts of law, iii.the right to be treated equally with others in matters of taxation so that each man pays the same proportion of his means as paid by others, and iv.the right to be treated equally admissible with others to public honours and offices of employment. We have learned to think not only of what may be called political equality, in relation to general life of the whole of the organized community and we have accordingly come to believe that there are further rights which ought to be added to the rights of political equality. These rights are still as they were in the process of construction. They are emerging from the social thought and beginning to pass into the common conviction in the form of political community. However, the exact extent of its dimension have still to be determined by the continuing process of social thought and by the method of tentative experiment. They are the rights which men are beginning to claim and in relation to governing authority and the distribution of its incidence, but in relation to one another, the measure of general equality between man and the man partly in economic status and the distribution of the economic possessions and partly in educational opportunities and enjoyment of the general treasures of culture.