NCERT Solutions for Class 12 English Chapter 1 - Non Fiction

Freedom is a Non-Fiction story written by G.B. Shaw, where he puts out his thoughts about who is a free person. He starts the story trying to define who is a perfectly free person. As per him, a person is free if he can do what he wants to, when he wants to and where he wants to or may even choose not to do anything at all. He further says that there is no perfectly free person and will never be. Even if we wish to be free, we have some basic compulsions like to sleep, dress, eat and go from one place to another. So basically we are a slave of our necessities, and we are bound to carry on with these activities for half of our day. Whether one is a king or labour, he cannot shirk out these mundane jobs of daily life. A woman needs to bear the additional slavery of bearing children to increase the world population.

These natural jobs that we have to do day in, day out come with other work too. Like to eat, you need to provide food first. To sleep, you need a bed first. If we have to walk from one place to another, we need clothes to cover ourselves. Human labourers can make food, clothing and the house but the problem is that these can also be stolen. The author draws an analogy with the bees as labourers that make honey, but humans can steal it from them. If humans are lazy to walk around, they can get a horse. How you behave with a bee or a horse, you can behave in the same way with other human beings, be it a man or a woman. You can have the upper hand over them through any means, be it by force or through tricks or by making them realize that they must sacrifice their freedom for you.

So it is important to understand that if you have to give an upper hand to someone, then that person can treat you like a slave. He may shift his slavery naturally to you, and you will see yourself working for eight to eleven hours in the day. The government should try to stop this imposition but that, unfortunately, does not happen. The government enforces slavery and takes away freedom. They, however, take care to curtail the greed of the masters. You have the freedom to move from one employer to another. However, that does not solve the purpose. When you still go on complaining, you are shown the power of the vote, and they say that it is through the vote that you can govern this country.

During the election that takes place every five years, you get to cast your vote among two choices. This is a choice you make, but that does not save you in any way. You are still working the same hours every single day. The newspapers will, however, say that you are a free citizen living in a democratic country. We are fools that believe in this.

Nature makes us slaves but in a pleasant way. We do like to eat and drink, right? The slavery of man to man, however, is opposite and dreadful. Our poets themselves say that there is no one man better than the other to be his master. The human class, however, through the medium of schools and jobs does not let us understand this slavery. If one ends up questioning this government, they are reminded of the taxes where the rich need to pay a good amount which is sometimes even half their earnings. The poor are never reminded about their need to work two jobs in the day just to pay their rents and fill their stomach.

Even if authors and poets bring out this topic of freedom, they are called as scoundrels, murderers, libertines and atheists. It is made a criminal offence to buy or sell their books. Now someone from a humble family is taught through years of education and schooling that he is a fine person and is superior to the common being. He feels good about the nation and is ready to shed his as well as his employees’ blood to the nations’ services. The labourers, however, do not feel so good about the nation and its policies. The despair of these labourers makes them join gangs.

However, all being said, slavery is not always bad, else we would not have a nation of law-abiding citizens. If a common man is asked to vote, he may not vote for those from his class. It was seen that when women were asked to vote from a system with many women, they did not vote for any women. In fact, they chose only one woman who was rich and had a good personality. This is human nature.

Human nature can be moulded at a young age, and whether one becomes a master or a slave, the thoughts are already fed into the child’s mind. The arrogance of the master class and the idolatry of the slave class are already fed into their brain, and that is a grave problem.

The question that now arises is how to distribute the incomes well. If the earth can be ploughed with motors and using chemical fertilizers and if the industries had a girl who is handling the machinery, the unskilled manager would have the same income parity. However, to sum up, only one thing can be said, wipe out all your dreams of being free. You need to be nature’s slaves for at least 12 hours in the day. If you live in a civilized area, you have to pay taxes and oblige government laws. This can help to maintain law and order in the country.

There is another slavery of your employer and your landlord. You can take the help of the trade union for this, but you would only be affected if you start to starve and stroke. However, one needs to see the bright side. Even if you have to work for say 12 hours, you still have a few hours in hand. You may want to do what you like the best. Even in your holidays, you need to be slaves to nature’s calls. So, do not expect total freedom but try to make as much of the time that you have in hand. Freedom is just leisure, and at times, we do not even know what to do with our leisure. So, it depends on you to decide if you want to work fewer hours but for a longer life span or more hours for a lesser life span.

J. Krishnamurthy talks about discipline and freedom. If we build a barrier against something that we consider wrong, we feel that we would be more capable of living free. Freedom, however, does not come in a frame, but most of us live in a frame. One needs to break the prison walls of tradition and not just follow someone but find out things on his own. Discipline is imposed on you by yourself. You need to be free to think about it and to find out things by yourself. You thus need a child to be free to find out stuff and not be obliged by the dos and the don’ts. If you are bound by tradition, only then there is no intelligence and thus no freedom. Intelligence is when you are free to think and discover, and this means that you are not a frightening entity anymore. Fear destroys your sensitivity if you live a life of pretence.

Key Features of NCERT Solutions for Class 12 English Chapter 1- Freedom

NCERT Class 12 English Chapter 1 Freedom lets students score well in their board exams. The solutions offered by Vedantu have been prepared with care to ensure that students’ concepts are built. The solutions are detailed which lets students get a good grasp of the concepts.

• Students get all their doubts cleared when they go through the solution.

• To confidently appear in the exam, students should go through these solutions many times.

• These solutions let students perform well in the English language all through their life.

Conclusion

Vedantu’s NCERT Class 12 English Chapter 1 Freedom free pdf cover all the important questions present in the NCERT English textbooks, and the solutions are meant to be studied to understand the chapter in a better way. The answers are easy to read and understand and are prepared, considering the Cbse guidelines and mark's weightage so that students do not exceed or concede the word count while writing the solution during the exam.