There are many shades to “Freedom” which sets a person free. There is freedom from poverty, hunger, destitution, disease; from ignorance, illiteracy, discrimination, oppression, terror. These are the freedoms that are fundamental rights with which every human being is born, which every human being should enjoy anywhere in the world. Granted these freedoms, a human being is free individually. But there is always a threshold which needs to be crossed personally to attain these freedoms; and this threshold varies for different human beings This is not so when one talks of a nation; for a nation represents collective conscience of all its citizens. And in a nation like India it has to represent collectively the conscience and aspirations of her different social layers and ethos. The world at large talks of “unity in diversity” of India thus negating the cardinal principal of collective freedom. My vision of “Free India” is when we accept “diversity in unity: of India, when it is accepted that there can be only one “Freedom” for India and that is unified or collective freedom which then crosses to her citizens according to individual thresholds.

—Dr. Kanak Rele