Human Freedom

Freedom today is believed to be the prerogative of humanity and is thus established as a fact with a great deal of conviction. The grand democracies of the world hold out freedom as the magnificent hallmark of their existence. Our New age and current life is seen as representing this order of freedom, where we have freedom of opinion, choice, and most importantly Action. Man is apparently progressing and leading the way to a more intelligent and humane existence. This right to Freedom has given man the valuable agency of exercising his will (in almost every aspect of his/her existence) that allows for progression and development of humanity. Are are we really developing ? 

What is Development, and how are we to come to terms with it in today’s scenario of the world? For instance, we as Indians are apparently citizens of a developing nation and are moving forwards in becoming a Developed one. The international community prides itself in already beholding an array of developed nations. In the face of a disastrous climate emergency where survival is at stake (and increasing with each minute), how can we have the audacity to measure and value development only in terms of a G.D.P output and/or economic growth? Today to calculate our existence and its surroundings on such determinants of development highlights sheer foolishness and a lack of humanness at its best.

A very desperate and imperative change that we need to see in the world (if humanity truly wants to prevent its extinction) is a change in the meaning of development and a reconsideration of its pursuit. To say we are a developing country because we are economically secure and our gross domestic product is high is unacceptable. It is actually the complete opposite because the intensity of assault, subjugation and exploitation of Nature (and everything it entails) is only going to perish humankind. It is the most simple, logical and scientific explanation that children understand better than people in power today. It is absolutely necessary that we realize and remedy the costs at which we continue such development. We have continued development in India with a great zeal and vigor for the past few decades with a complete disregard for our environment, wildlife, and natural resources. Our development also has caused innumerable and intense injustices to various sections of society. However, we still continue to carry on this form of development, leading us to a pinnacle of disaster. To remedy the costs at which we have continued such development is actually to encapsulate the most important component of development and thereby, redefine it.

For instance, the eight-billion global population milestone underscores the increasing dependence on agricultural sustainability to produce 60 percent more food to feed the planet by 2050. Globally, over the past few decades, a shift toward unsustainable agricultural practices like increased usage of chemical inputs and increased pest threats has led to soil erosion, loss in soil nutrition, and depleting groundwater levels—eventually leading to a drastic loss in yields and frequent crop failures. According to the Global Food Policy Report 2022 by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), soil erosion in India will diminish up to 10 percent of crop yields by 2050. This is staggering and is equivalent to removing millions of hectares of land from crop production, significantly impacting food supply. 

Moreover, regenerating this topsoil is an extremely gradual process, with only one centimeter forming in over 1000 years. Healthy groundwater levels are pivotal to food security and account for 60 percent of irrigation supplies in India—a country that is incidentally the world’s largest consumer of underground water. Heavy dependence on water-intensive crops such as rice and wheat, coupled with increased groundwater consumption for domestic uses, is rapidly depleting this critical reserve. While the rice-wheat cropping system has been integral to India’s food grain sufficiency, its excessive application across the country has led to serious challenges of declining productivity, groundwater depletion, soil deterioration, and high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 

Therefore, in India, where the agricultural sector employs almost half the country’s population, the need to adopt sustainable practices is especially urgent—something that the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoAFW) also acknowledges. This fundamental shift would require a reimagining of what we eat and how we produce it. 

Development and modernization are supposed to have opened our minds and moved us away from tyrannical rules, imperialism and other such evils that smothered our freedom in the older world. Our modern life is seen as representing the order of Freedom. Such Freedom is also used as a sound basis to legitimize actions of the capitalist and globalized world. However, are we really free agents in the current model of the “free market economy”? Another desperate change that the world needs to see is a huge reduction in unsustainable and inhumane consumerism and materialism. It is extremely important for us, urban centric beings to realize, as part of a change, that it is our current consumption pattern which is THE cause of the ecological crisis the world faces today. Our lifestyles today are probably the greatest living evil that is actually creating the existing crisis of our times. The outcome of our urban lifestyles in the world today are heart wrenching. The costs at which we lead such lifestyles are so greatly inflictive on other vulnerable humans and living beings. Ironically, this mode of “Development'' threatens our life on this planet with each passing day! We are aware of such costs; we know the degradation of forests, wildlife, and aquatic ecosystems. We are driven by our consumerism and completely caught in this web of dependence. Our material and monetary world encompasses us and shapes us in every aspect of our lives. We need to realize the disastrous effects of this and drastically reduce this dependence. In this web of development and consumerism, in which each drives the other there is a gross neglect of resources and nature. 

What we have to understand is that we are actually paving a way for our own disaster. We live in a scenario where oil and water as natural resources are leading to scarcity, rampant deforestation continues even though we know the intrinsic need for a healthy and diverse ecology. Labor exploitation goes on in various corporations, assault on natural habitats of various creatures still continues. What are we as human beings doing? If we are free individuals, how are we using our free will as free agents? We are only using it to harm ourselves, deeply. We continue to exercise the wrong choices and conveniently overlook the disastrous costs of them. In the name of being free civilized individuals, we are sinking into the worst form of being possible. Where have our basic faculties of humaneness gone? Now is the time we need to realize it. We don’t need any revolutions or any other cause to spark us, when we are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis and HOW ironic that it is we who are causing it! It is almost as if floating in our urban centric consumerist world we are suspended from reality and from our innate nature of human compassion and intelligence.

With Freedom comes the better half of it, a sense of Responsibility. Such responsibility is inherently tied to freedom and cannot be ridden from it. With the freedom to make choices, comes the responsibility to undertake these choices rightly, ethically and judiciously. However, the current scenario of the world is precisely the inversion of this picture that exudes an unsubstantial and deceitful use of freedom. There is a pressing need for Governments to comprehend a holistic idea of Development and in doing so, implement it. In fact civil society is the most potent force to shake authorities into action. Governments will intervene through major legislative and public policy changes only when the people demand it and loudly. Impact is key and time is the most important factor now. Reviewing these issues is not the solution. It is the time to just simply act and create such changes. However, nothing changes unless each one of us unites and takes substantial collective action NOW! 

The understanding, rational and intelligent faculties of man need to be realized. The true meaning of our freedom and thereby, its implementation has to be realized. We have to undertake the responsibility of our being, because essentially man is created to be a free being.