What is Freedom?

A simple answer to 'what is freedom' is that it is the absence of constraints: an individual is free if he or she is not subject to external controls or coercion and can make independent decisions and act in an autonomous way. But absence of constraint is only one dimension of freedom. Freedom is also about expanding people's ability to freely express themselves and develop their potential — it is the condition in which people can develop their creativity and capabilities. A free society is one that enables all its members to develop their potential with the minimum of social constraints.

A closely related idea in Indian political thought is Swaraj — from Swa (self) and Raj (rule). It can mean both the rule of the self over the self, and rule over the self by others being removed. In the freedom struggle it referred to freedom as a constitutional and political demand, which is why it became such a powerful rallying cry — Tilak's famous line, 'Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it.' Gandhiji, in Hind Swaraj (1909), understood Swaraj even more deeply, as rule over the self: 'It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.' For him Swaraj was not just freedom from outside rule but a personal liberation — redeeming one's own self-respect, self-responsibility and capacity for self-realisation. …