While reading the Constitution of India and the legal debates and case laws, I realised that so many legal battles have been fought around freedom of expression and liberty. In fact, the entire freedom struggle was around freedom and liberty. We should have the right to manage our own affairs, to have our own representatives in Parliament, and to freedom of expression and the right to live a dignified life. This has been the struggle of all the countries that have fought their battle for freedom.
I'm surprised to see how easily people give in to social pressure. The freedom of expression, the right to a dignified life, and the right to make choices: these are all surrendered to social pressure quite often. How many of us would speak what we feel on any issue if we are surrounded by people who have a different opinion on the same issue? All of us have experienced a simple instance where, at a wedding, the music is generally loud and relatives who have come from distant places want to talk to each other, but they find it extremely difficult to raise their voices because of the fear of being the odd person out. How many of us give priority to a dignified life when it comes to close relations? Often, our relatives hurt our dignity, and we keep quiet to save the relationship. Because we feel that the relationship is more important than self-dignity. Basically, we are afraid of old age and a support system for our children, and therefore, we choose to live an undignified life rather than getting out of the relationship. How many of us are able to make choices? In fact, the real question is how many of us have learned to make choices? Quite often, we choose what society has told us. Our rights and wrongs are highly influenced by the society we live in. We hardly ever examine our thought process during our lifetime. Whatever society has told us since day one continues to drive our decisions. As if a robot programmed by the engineer makes decisions.
It intrigues me what may be the reason for such a way of life. While so many people participated in the struggle for freedom, and in fact many sacrificed their lives too, how do we give that away so easily? I think that we are unable to see the effects of slow poisoning. That's what happened when the British ruled India. They entered India for the first time as innocent traders who wanted rights to their small place. Slowly and gradually, they took over the entire country.
That's how conforming to the social norms takes over the individual choices and freedom. Every time we make a decision, our brain evaluates what is normal. If we keep listening to that loud music at parties despite headaches and irritation, the human mind will assume it's normal. Since we have normalised to the situation, we are not going to take any corrective action. Since we have become used to being bullied and insulted by the relative, we are not going to stand up to it. This aspect has been portrayed quite well in the web series Chiraya, where a lady stands against marital rape, and the whole of the family stands against her. It highlights the fact that many people in India, both males and females, have normalised the exploitation in relationships. We have made peace with the fact that choices are always based on societal preferences. We have to spend our time arranging the household, having food, and having views that are endorsed by society. Slowly, it becomes natural to us, and we lose the capacity to hold independent views and make choices. In fact, we fail to appreciate that individual choices may be quite different from the popular choices, and that's why we see the revolutions by the LGBTQ community.
It is very difficult for a weak mind to stand tall against popular opinions, have his own opinions, even if they do not match the views of the masses, to fight for his dignity, at the cost of a threat to survival and to enable himself to exercise choices, which are based on his own understanding of the world rather than the conditioning by society. It requires a lot of maturity. It requires utmost awareness. However, generally, we tend to be lazy, especially after completing our education. This laziness seems very attractive at first. It's very relaxing. However, it has far-reaching consequences in our lives. AI provides comfort to the user. It does the 5-hour work in 5 minutes. But then, it takes away the thinking cap. When we rely on Google Maps for a long time, we lose our ability to remember routes. I wish that we do not lose awareness of our fundamental nature to explore, experiment, and be free in the world of propaganda and AI. Retaining our original thinking in this world is the biggest challenge.
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