Liberty, another word for freedom is an essential concomitant for development and growth. However, just to get liberty is not enough, in how we use it lies at the essence of achievement by liberty.
In the modern world, a lot of freedom is given to all and sundry. Liberty to women, to children, to workers, to lower classes and so on and so forth. However, as things stand today, wherever we look it is being amply misused.
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The modern world is correct when it says and thinks that, there can be no growth without liberty. So much so good but, when we think of liberty we do not seem to realize that, complete liberty should be given only to a highly sophisticated, highly disciplined and a highly educated and responsible class of people. This is because if we give liberty to a lesser class that does not know the right use of the gift, it will in all probability be misused.
Just as a monkey handling a razor is likely to cut his cheek while a man knows how to use it correctly to his advantage without harming himself. In the very same way, liberty is also a thing which needs a very delicate and sophisticated handling for it to be really useful. Liberty must thereby find place only in the hands of the few well educated and well meaning people.
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However, this is not true at least in India, liberty has been granted as a gift from the Gods to all and sundry and the result is for all of us to see. Wherever liberty is being given it is being misused by one and all. This is because when liberty is in the hands of people like those, common in India, dishonest and indisciplined, it is bound to bring disaster. To understand the validity of the statement that, liberty must be given only when we are disciplined and knowhow and how far to use this gift. To see how far our liberty is misused we will take and study a few examples from our day-to-day lives.
The home and the society are the two main spheres where all of us individuals have interest. At the home front, the women and the children have the liberty to work, to play, to go where they want, to follow any style of dress they may like, so on and so forth. This large spectrum of freedom has led to an utter confusion in the family where everyone does what he/she wants as, each one is at liberty to, do as he/ she wants to do. Our very understanding of the concept of liberty and the true concept has taken a beating.
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We, being not really educated and disciplined feel that, in reality we can do, say behave as and when we like. Yes, this is what basically liberty is all about, but, do we know where to stop taking this liberty? Women are free to do what they want and not do what they do not want, but, when we hear the following, “the house is mine and yours together when I can look after the house so can you.” When a wife says this to her husband it shows that she has not really understood her liberty correctly.
She does not seem to realize that, such words can have multiple effects on the family. Work gets dislocated as, now both partners want the other to take the first step forward. Seeing this, the children take the cue and learn the same indiscipline and misbehaviour. Similarly, at the level of the society everyone wishing to do what and how he/she wants leaves the social fabric without any cohesion and civic boundaries.
Thus when we talk of liberty we must ensure that, it must come only after good education, and discipline for else, liberty in the hands of the uneducated and uncouth becomes a harbinger of greater and greater indiscipline, leading to disaster. This is exactly what is happening in India. Every individual has the liberty to do, to say and behave as he/she wants, and the resulting chaos is for us all to suffer. Liberty is the gift meant for people who know how far to take the liberty and when to stop using it and, above all how to use their liberty.