• Ponmala

A caged parrot has all the comforts a bird could hope for. It is well fed. It is well protected from predators. It is loved and petted. But would a free-flying bird envy it and do all in its power to enter the cage? No, it wouldn’t. If only to enjoy the freedom of flying free and soaring into the sky, it would brave the risk of being hunted and be willing to bear the hardships of gathering food, building a nest, brooding eggs, feeding and watching over nestlings. Even birds understand that freedom is worth all the risks it entails, but not all men do. Too many in the world are now opting for the comfort of the cage… of domineering dictatorship.
God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where He had made all kinds of beautiful trees that produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. God said to Adam: “You must not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of what is good and what is evil. If you do, you will die the same day.” Over and above the bounties of the garden, God gave the first man the unique gift of freedom of choice, which distinguishes him from the rest of creation. But that gift was a two-edged sword. If he misused the freedom, he would die, he would cease to exist. He misused the freedom and so was driven out of the paradise where all that he wished for was available. All the afflictions, hardships and pains that he would suffer until death were a punishment for that misuse of freedom. But, by eating the forbidden fruit, the man became like God by acquiring the knowledge of what is good and what is bad. In other words, by exercising freedom of choice in eating the forbidden fruit, man gained the supreme gift of intelligence, which at once made him the king of creation and the bearer of God’s image – the power of reasoning.
It is intelligence that makes man capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, good and bad. People who have an underdeveloped intelligence or impaired intelligence do not enjoy the freedom of choice. That indeed is the reason why we do not hold children or the mentally challenged guilty for their culpable actions. Those who trade freedom for the comforts of life should also be added to that category: They are humans only by birth, not by the life they live. Those who prefer prosperity to freedom are like caged parrots. To the extent freedom is denied, men become lesser humans. You may have all the comforts prosperity can offer, but you will be a lesser human if you do not have the freedom to ask uncomfortable questions, to speak truth to power, to dissent or to denounce. Freedom is what sets man apart from the rest of creation.
Beware of rulers who shut you up in cages, promising prosperity. The first thing that a dictator does is to put restrictions to people’s freedom, because a herd that blindly follows his command gives him the freedom to govern as he pleases. He restricts people’s freedom for him to enjoy unrestricted freedom. He fashions the country he rules into a cage and turns his people into pets. This love for pets over humans is becoming a craze among average people too. The prosperous West is staring at a demographic meltdown. Women who view children as a bother they had better eschew are increasing by the day there. They rear pets instead. All their life pets are so sweet, so grateful, so attached, so reliable, so protective, unlike children who can also be so bothersome, so demanding, so disobedient, so big a burden and may even be so ungrateful and ruinous. If only they had children too, they wouldn’t be stooping down to the level of the pets they rear – less than human. Just as they do physically, emotionally too humans should beget humans, not animals.
This year’s general elections are for Indians as critical a moment as that in which Adam and Eve found themselves when the serpent tempted them to eat the forbidden fruit. If we eat the apple of prosperity that Modi is offering this time around too, we shall be driven out of the paradise of democracy. We will be condemned to die – the death of our freedom. Modi will lock us up in the Hindutva cage, and we shall thereafter long in vain to fly free like those who enjoy freedom’s vast expanse outside. Modi has already herded us into a cage by fooling us with his bluff and bluster. The election results that will come in a few days will decide whether he will succeed in locking us up permanently in it. If Modi wins, it would mean that we, as a nation, have chosen the comfort of the cage… and chosen to be lesser humans.
Adam and Eve, who had become intelligent like God by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, would also have become immortal like Him if they ate of the fruit of the tree of life. To deny them that opportunity, God drove them out of the Garden of Eden. But God sent His son to open its gates again for them and their progeny. Here again, He has given to man the freedom to exercise the choice to enter it and eat the fruit of the tree of life or not. That is the extent to which even the Creator respects man’s freedom. Woe to them who exchange it for the cosiness of the cage!