Commentary/Dilip D'Souza

Ekalavya and the Meaning of Freedom

Ekalavya is one of the more tragic figures in that great Indian epic, the Mahabharata. Maybe you know about him. Rejected by the sage Dronacharya who could not bring himself to teach the skills of a warrior to a low caste, Ekalavya taught himself those skills, inspired by a statue of the great man. But when Dronacharya found out just how splendid an archer this young tribal had become, just how much of a threat he would be to Arjuna, the star pupil, he asked for his payment: after all, hadn't Dronacharya's statue guided Ekalavya's efforts? <

And what was this payment? He asked for Ekalavya's right thumb. Ekalavya willingly cut it off and handed it over. No more archery for him.

It must seem curious that I thought of Ekalavya when I read about the antics of some MPs a few days ago. Bear with me as I try to persuade you of a link between them.

It wasn't a particularly distinguished start to the month that we turn 50 years old. MPs of the party that guided us to freedom, and many others too, climbed on to the front pages by making a public mockery of the ideals of that freedom. A public mockery of themselves too, but then that happens often, if never often enough.

No, some Congress MPs -- a G Venkatswamy, a Satya Behan, a K S R Murthy, maybe some others too -- got themselves photographed burning a copy of Arun Shourie's new book on B R Ambedkar. The Rajya Sabha unanimously -- that is, every single MP, from every single party, joined in the fun -- decided to call it "derogatory and disgusting" and demanded that it be banned immediately. The government of Maharashtra announced that it was considering a ban. And inside Parliament, someone called Ajit Jogi said the book was "clearly worthless and should be confiscated" and, remarkably, "people should not be allowed to read this book."

I read these news reports, looked at the revolting pictures of the fireworks, and wondered: How is it that we have found ourselves a set of politicians who are so utterly, thoroughly, ignorant of the meaning of freedom? How do we get representatives of the people who can say "people should not be allowed to read this book"?

They all do it. If the Shiv Sena was determined to prevent us from reading Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh two years ago, the Congress decided to ban his earlier book, Satanic Verses. If everyone in the Maharashtra assembly wanted to ban an issue of the Illustrated Weekly because of an article it carried about Shivaji, everyone in the Rajya Sabha wants to ban Shourie's book on Ambedkar. And somewhere in between, Outlook magazine's inaugural issue was pulled off the stands because it published the results of a poll in Kashmir that some politicians found unpalatable.

"No doubt we should have freedom of expression," one A G Shinde of the Republican Party of India told the press, "but such a book [Shourie's] creates a vicious atmosphere in the country." Which made about as little sense as one Pramod Navalkar of the Shiv Sena had done during the imbroglio of The Moor's Last Sigh. Then, Navalkar agreed that yes, our Constitution did ensure freedom of expression -- but only for Indians, not for "NRIs like Salman Rushdie."

Like others before and around them, the Shindes, Navalkars and Jogis have simply no idea that freedom of expression comes with no shoulds, no buts. It's chilling to think that its safety is entrusted to people who cannot understand that. The truth is, not one political party in India has shown a willingness to stand up and defend freedom of expression, that bedrock of democracy. None of them understands it. None of them understands how fragile it is.

And yet, the very existence of the parties, the very position of their members as MPs or MLAs, is a loud affirmation of democracy. They are where they are just so that they can represent the innumerable shades of opinion in this fascinatingly diverse country. Democracy, freedom of expression -- these ideas mean that every voice has a chance to be heard. Including, in fact, Arun Shourie's voice. Nobody has yet, to my knowledge, suggested that "people should not be allowed" to listen to one or more of our politicians. Though, now that I have put that down in black and white, it looks like a surprisingly good idea...

What is it about freedom of expression that allows it to be so easily flung aside? What makes democracy so hard to understand?

I wonder about these questions sometimes. When I do, it strikes me that perhaps we never have valued democratic notions, ever. They are not concepts that we find in our traditions, let alone our recent history. We never have had much use for the equality that's implicit in democracy -- among other things, that we all have an equal right to knowledge, to write things, to read them, to judge for ourselves.

On the contrary, it's inequality we have valued and perpetuated. That some of us are more privileged than the rest -- in any of a myriad ways -- is somehow assumed to be not just true, but the way we are supposed to be. Knowledge, in particular, is reserved for only a few. If they are revered for that knowledge, they are revered even though they keep it from the grasp of others.

That's what makes me remember Ekalavya.

If you think about it in more mundane terms than you will find in the Mahabharata, Ekalavya's crime was simple. He dared to acquire knowledge for himself that had always been in the hands of a privileged few. Dronacharya made it quite clear when he told Ekalavya he would not teach him: only the twice-born higher castes were permitted to learn his skills. That was obvious, a given that needed no explanation. Ekalavya flouted it; he had to pay.

In the normal course of things, Ekalavya should have had the freedom to learn whatever he set his mind to. Perhaps you think that is a modern idea, perhaps it is unfair to apply it to events from a time when standards were entirely different. Fair enough. Still, for all his great learning and wisdom, Dronacharya's treatment of Ekalavya shames him. But it matters little. Throughout the Mahabharata, he is a revered father figure, an example to us all. And if the man who would not allow Ekalavya to learn, who destroyed him for learning nevertheless -- if he is an example today, is it so strange that we think nothing when we hear "people should not be allowed to read this book"?

Freedom of expression has several facets. One is that people like Arun Shourie must be able to write whatever they set their mind to. Another is that people like you and me must be able to read whatever we set our minds to. Pronouncing that we "should not be allowed to read" a book is meaningless at best, a mockery of freedom at worst.

Nobody stood up to Dronacharya when he made Ekalavya hack off his thumb. That's fine for an ancient legend. But who is standing up to our MPs as they hack, small-mindedly, in different ways, at our freedom? For the freedom we woke to half a century ago was only partly from the British. We also promised ourselves freedom in various other forms. Arguably, that promise was the true meaning of that joyous August 15: a free India that would grow up to be strong, compassionate, confident, wise.

Some of those words, I like to think, applied to Ekalavya.

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