What ‘freedom’ means to Nehru, Madhani, Tharoor

There is a fairytale that when Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the National Flag in the afternoon of August 15, 1947, near India Gate in New Delhi, a rainbow bloomed on the sky. There was a surprise shower too. Like the colours of that rainbow, the concept of Independence alias freedom remained different for various sects of people in India. Even after 63 years, for us, the meaning of freedom is still similar to the shape of water.

On India’s 64th Independence Day, Parasuraman spared some thought on what freedom means to a cross-section of our society.

For the second universal citizen from India (after V K Krishna Menon) and the Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, freedom means his privilege to marry as many times as he wishes and conduct as many wedding receptions as he can. Shashikuttan’s third marriage, which will be solemnised by his grandma in Palakkad, will be accompanied by at least four receptions in different parts of the world. Blunt Edge is happy that at least one Member of Parliament from Kerala took the courage to break the old and boring conventions set by khadi-clad politicians of our times. Let him also show the guts to drape his Kashmiri bride in gold and diamond and offer a seven course or nine course feast for the guests.

For PDP chairman Abdul Nasser Madhani, freedom means his success in organising a shield of orphan children around him at Anwarsseri and thus keep the police on tenterhooks outside the walls of his fort. Freedom is also an opportunity to use his religion to escape from the inconveniences caused by the law of the land to him. He can use the rare freedom to conduct a press conference when the police had already rounded him off.

For Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, Freedom means an escape from all bonds. He can skip the extended central committee meeting of the party. VS has the freedom to put all of his Cabinet colleagues under a cloud of doubt and refuse to sign a file approved by the Cabinet. He has the freedom to call his Cabinet colleagues by crude names. He can invade the territories of his Cabinet colleagues and issue orders to officials of other departments without the knowledge of the ministers concerned.

For Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, freedom means his opportunity to criticise Sikkim lottery, the owner of which is one of the wealthiest friends of his party. Isaac’s freedom also means his power to register a case against Santiago Martin’s cousin’s lottery agency and withdraw the case on the very next day.

For K Muraleedharan, freedom is his opportunity to celebrate the Independence Day in a totally independent way, ie, not under the banner of any party. He has the freedom to support the Congress and at the same time make a dig at the state president of that party.

For AMMA president Innocent, freedom is his ability to ban all his members from attending a function to honour the acting legend Kamal Hassan just because Kamal Hassan is not a member of his organisation which he believes is the strongest organisation in Mollywood.

For most of the schools in the state, freedom means their right to postpone the Independence Day to August 16 or prepone it to August 14 (and thus join Pak schools in celebration).

And finally, for Parasuraman, freedom means the privilege to use the precious space of this respected newspaper to criticise all those who come in his way and derive some kind of sadistic pleasure from that!

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