The ideal of freedom

History is full of people and communities dominated, enslaved or exploited by more powerful groups, and of heroic struggles against such domination. The struggle for freedom is the desire of people to be in control of their own lives and destinies, and to express themselves freely through their choices. Societies, too, value their independence and wish to protect their culture and future.

Two inspiring lives:

• Nelson Mandela's autobiography is titled *Long Walk to Freedom*. He fought the apartheid regime in South Africa, whose laws discriminated by race: Black people were pushed into townships, denied free movement, even denied a free choice of whom to marry. For the freedom of all South Africans, Black, coloured and white, Mandela spent 27 years in jail, often in solitary confinement, giving up his youth, friends, favourite sport (boxing), music and festivals.
• Aung San Suu Kyi, inspired by Gandhi's ideas of non-violence, stayed under house arrest in Myanmar, separated from her children and unable to visit her husband as he was dying, fearing she would not be allowed back. Her book of essays is *Freedom from Fear*: 'for me real freedom is freedom from fear and unless you can live free from fear you cannot live a dignified human life.'

These lives show the power of the ideal of freedom, which was at the centre of India's national struggle and the struggles of peoples across Asia and Africa against British, French and Portuguese colonialism.

Swaraj, a concept close to freedom in Indian political thought, combines swa (self) and raj (rule). It means both rule of the self and rule over the self.

• In the freedom struggle it was a political and constitutional demand, as in Tilak's famous statement: 'Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it.'
• Mahatma Gandhi stressed swaraj as rule over the self in *Hind Swaraj* (1909): 'It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.' It means regaining self-respect, self-responsibility and the capacity for self-realisation, freeing both individual and collective potential, guided by justice.

Example (new): a girl who is the first in her village to choose a college course in another city, despite relatives' doubts, is taking her own small step on a 'walk to freedom'.