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It is only a make-believe that we are born free. We are not. Have you wondered why authorities register your birth? To keep track of you. It is like tying a collar radar on the neck of a beast so one could trace it as and when required and curb its movements. The word ‘official’ is quite scary. Official means belonging to the office. We ‘belong’ – we are not free, on our own.  They also register our death to keep record of our family, our property etc. Government is the diplomatic watchdog of individual freedom and a state is a prison. Of course the state is so much glorified and camouflaged with various emotional and other facades that it appears to be the place you always wanted to be, live and die for. This is your delusion. And a thinker who points out at your delusion is believed to be a rebel.

We all suffer from the psychological disorder of persecutory delusion. Your world of delusion is your own private world and unfortunately the number of people who suffer from this disorder is vast. Society is an unfortunate outcome of an abrupt phenomenon called civilization where the people who are accidently or intentionally in a powerful position dictate the terms of the society and set the norms. The powerless or less powerful obey and submit. Have you been intimidated by the fact that each one of the so–called authorities/establishments including hospitals, educational institutions, governments, employment organizations intrude our personal spaces? Have you questioned as to why do they ask for a surname along with your name?

What is the purpose of including nationality, religion, and sub-community name in your certificates? What right do they have to ask you about your income details? What gives them the right to know if you are married or single?

Apparently everybody is anxious to nose in and blatantly intrude into other’s private space. The dictum is ‘if I am an authority I have the right to intrude’. To the extent that now the legislations decide who to make love and ‘how’! Consider this. Government imposes on government employees the election duties. As government employee, he/she may take it up as a part of their job profile. So far, so good. But if the same employee has to exercise his/her right to vote, he/she has to fill in certain forms to be able to cast a vote where he/she is assigned duty.

Since the constituency of his/ her residence is most likely different than the constituency in which he/she is assigned duty. Just as the government has intricate mechanism to impose duty meticulously, can’t it also provide the facility to cast a vote at the constituency where they place the employee as election officer? Efficiency and authority is used only to exploit work but not to give rights.

I think government ‘servant’ is an apt word to describe its employees. Everybody who has the authority is in the position to exploit and we as powerless individuals are born only to succumb. We succumb to the school authorities by giving them non-refundable donations. We succumb to the principals and teacher’s suggestions for our kids. We succumb to college authorities, community power, religious influence, employer’s threats and artificially created sophisticated byelaws of the company. We at times succumb to the doctor’s authoritative recommendations in spite of our rights to our body, to the authority of  bureaucrats, to the power of the builders who eye  the slums or old but prime properties. We are crushed right from the day we begin to exist. It’s a dark, exploitative, brute, unjust society dominated by the creatures that do not care walking over the sentient or the less sentient alike.

It is not accidental that even slightly intelligent people have always been against the establishment; may it be Rousseau, Voltaire, Spinoza, Osho or Socrates. They expressed their freedom and their displeasure against the establishment and were persecuted sooner or later. This society or may be this state of collective human consciousness is too unevolved to allow intelligent, freedom loving beings to live and thrive.

At this juncture values like justice, freedom, truth, beauty… seem to be too fragile to be. Or may be at any given time they are fragile. Only occasionally a bud of freedom, of truth blooms for a while and soon withers away.

Nilesh P Megnani is a professor of philosophy who teaches not just the academics of his subject but the purpose of it to his students. He writes whenever he feel inspired and believes life  is workable hypothesis and love, the elusive potion that might transform humanity Connect with on neelvijayalaxmi@gmail.com