Subject: Political Science Notes

Topic: Freedom Class: XI

Name: Sec: Roll No: Date:

THE IDEA OF LIBERTY

NELSON MANDELA
 The autobiography of one of the greatest persons of the twentieth century, Nelson Mandela, is titled
‘Long Walk to Freedom’.
 . In this book he talks about his personal struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa,
about the resistance of his people to the segregationist policies of the white regime, about the
humiliations, hardships and police brutalities suffered by the black people of South Africa.
 For Mandela and his colleagues it was the struggle against such unjust constraints, the struggle to
remove the obstacles to the freedom of all the people of South Africa (not just the black or the
coloured but also the white people), that was the Long Walk to Freedom.
 For this freedom, Mandela spent twenty-seven years of his life in jail, often in solitary confinement.
 Imagine giving everything up and choosing instead to be locked up alone in a room, not knowing
when one would be released, only because one campaigned for the freedom of one’s people.

AUNG SAN SUU KYI

 Aung San Suu Kyi saw her freedom as connected to the freedom of her people. Her book of essays
bears the title Freedom from Fear. She says, “for me real freedom is freedom from fear and unless
you can live free from fear you cannot live a dignified human life”
 Aung San Suu Kyi as she remained under house arrest in Myanmar, separated from her children,
unable to visit her husband when he was dying of cancer, because she feared that if she left
Myanmar to visit him in England she would not be able to return.
 Aung San Suu Kyi saw her freedom as connected to the freedom of her people.

What is Freedom?

 Liberty is generally regarded as the absence of restrictions and limitations. It is considered

synonymous with the right of human beings to show whatever they want. (Lack of external
restrictions)
 Hobbes called the situation ‘do whatever you want’. The state of freedom is said. Which is
Available in the natural condition.
 In other words, Liberty means the right of man to do the work which he is capable of doing. To
expand the ability of self-expression of a person and to have such situations in which people can
develop their talent.
 According to Warker, Liberty of individuals is associated with the liberties of other individuals.
 Liberty features personality development + logical binding.
 In the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi etc. made freedom
their ideal of life by opposing discrimination, constructive and oppressive policies in governance
 Both these aspects of freedom — the absence of external constraints as well as the existence of
conditions in which people can develop their talents — are important.
Types of Liberty ( Freedom)
Natural Liberty :
 A person’s complete freedom to do everything he wishes.
 There should not be any kind of restrictions on human actions
Personal Liberty :
 Freedom of choice in personal matters;
 Safety of life;
 Freedom of expression and faith.
Political Liberty :
 The right to participate in the functions of the state.
 Right to vote.
 Right to contest free and fair elections.
 Right to support or oppose the policies and actions of the government
Economic Freedom :
 Right to get a beneficial position or to do business, right to freedom from absence, the right to
produce and distribute goods
To understand which social constraints are necessary, discussions on freedom need to look at the core
relationship between the individual and the society (or group, community, or state) within which
she/he is placed.
A free society is one that enables one to pursue one’s interests with a minimum of constraints.
Freedom is considered valuable because it allows us to make choices and to exercise our judgement. It
permits the exercise of the individual’s powers of reason and judgement.

The sources of Constraints

 Domination and external controls. (This was the form of constraint represented by colonial rulers
over their subjects, or by the system of apartheid in South Africa)
 By the Governments (Some form of government may be inevitable but if the government is a
democratic one, the members of a state could retain some control over their rulers.)
 Constraints on freedom can also result from social inequality of the kind implicit in the caste
system (Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose ““If we are to bring about a revolution of ideas we have first
to hold up before us an ideal which will galvanize our whole life.------- This is an ideal which may
appear Utopian to hard-headed men and women, but this ideal alone can appease the hunger in the
soul.”)

Why do we need Constraints?

 Overall development of individuals
  For the goal of social welfare.
 To prevent a collision situation.
 For proper sharing of limited resources.
 To maintain their ideas and develop their ways of living in a free society.
 To control violence and settle disputes.
 To respect differences of views, opinions and beliefs.
 Sometimes we need some legal and political restraints to ensure that differences may be discussed
and debated without one group coercively imposing its views on the other.

Further, are there any areas of our life and action that should be left free of all external
constraints?

HARM PRINCIPAL - John Stuart Mill

HARM PRINCIPAL
 Self Regarding Action
 that with respect to actions or choices that affect only one’s self
 the state (or any other external authority) has no business to interfere
 Other Regarding Action
 with respect to actions that have consequences for others, actions which may cause harm to
them
 In this case it is the state which can constrain a person from acting in a way that causes
harm to someone else.
 However, as freedom is at the core of human society, is so crucial for a dignified
human life, it should only be constrained in special circumstances.
 HARM
 MINOR HARM – Social diaapproval – No force of Law- Society needs to tolerate
 Serious Harm - Needs the force of Law- actions on which constraints can be imposed
 But we must make sure that the constraints imposed are not so severe that they
destroy freedom itself
  In the constitutional discussions in India, the term used for such justifiable constraints
is ‘reasonable restrictions’. The restrictions may be there but they must be
reasonable, i.e., capable of being defended by reason, not excessive, not out of
proportion to the action being restricted, since then it would impinge on the general
condition of freedom in society.
 EXAMPLE- Article 19 – Freedom of Speech and Expression
Clause 2 – in case of security issues this right is restricted.
LIBERALISM

When we say that someone’s parents are very ‘liberal’, we usually mean that they are very tolerant.
As a political ideology, liberalism has been identified with tolerance as a value. Liberals have often
defended the right of a person to hold and express his/her opinions and beliefs even when they disagree
with them.
But that is not all that there is to liberalism. And liberalism is not the only modern ideology that supports
tolerance. What is more distinctive about modern liberalism is its focus on the individual.
For liberals entities like family, society, community have no value in themselves, but only if these are
valued by individuals.
They would say, for example, that the decision to marry someone should be taken by the individual rather
than by the family, caste or the community.
Liberals tend to give priority to individual liberty over values like equality. They also tend to be suspicious
of political authority.
Historically, liberalism favoured free market and minimal role to the state. However, present day liberalism
acknowledges a role for welfare state and accepts the need for measures to reduce both social and economic
inequalities

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE LIBERTY

Negative Liberty –
 freedom as the absence of external constraints, and freedom as the expansion of
opportunities to express one’s self
 This is an area in which no external authority can interfere.
 It is a minimum area that is sacred and in which whatever the individual does, is
not to be interfered with.
 The existence of the ‘minimum area of noninterference’ is the recognition that
human nature and human dignity need an area where the person can act
unobstructed by others.
 If the area is too small then human dignity gets compromised.
 Negative liberty arguments are in response to the question: ‘Over what area am I
the master?’ It is concerned with explaining the idea of ‘freedom from’.
( Authority)
While enjoying negative liberty you destroy yourself. It harms its
ownself.
Positive Liberty-
 the arguments of positive liberty are concerned with explaining the idea of
‘freedom to’.
 It is concerned with looking at the conditions and nature of the relationship
between the individual and society and of improving these conditions such that
there are fewer constraints to the development of the individual personality.
 Positive liberty recognises that one can be free only in society (not outside it) and
hence tries to make that society such that it enables the development of the
individual.
Government may become tyrant under positive linerty.
Freedom of Expression
 The issue of freedom of expression is related to the smallest area of non interference
 John Stauart Mill, in his book ‘On Liberty’, argued strongly that freedom of expression should be
given to those whose views seem wrong and misleading in today’s situations.
 Freedom of expression is a fundamental value and for that society must be willing to bear some
 inconvenience to protect it from people who want to restrict it. Remember Voltaire’s statement —
‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it’
 Constraints of different kind thus exist and we are subject to them in different situations. While
reflecting on such situations we need to realise that when constraints are backed by organised social
— religious or cultural — authority or by the might of the state, they restrict our freedom in ways
that are difficult to fight against.
 if we willingly, or for the sake of pursuing our goals or ambitions, accept certain restrictions, our
freedom is not similarly limited.
 In any case if we are not coerced into accepting the conditions, then we cannot claim that our
freedom has been curtailed.

 Four powerful arguments

No idea is completely wrong. There is also some piece of truth in it.
Truth does not originate from itself, but arises from conflict of opposing
views
When an opposing view comes with an idea, then only that idea’s
credibility is proved.
What is true today cannot always be true or many times the idea which is
not acceptable today can be valuable for the time to come
Many times restrictions on freedom of expression become a solution to the problem in the short term and
meet the demand of the present day, but it is very dangerous in terms of the far-reaching possibilities of
freedom in society.