NCERT Solutions Class 12 English Chapter 14 Freedom 2026-27

Concept used. Shaw uses the word slavery in two ways. Natural slavery means the unavoidable work imposed by the body and by Nature. Social slavery begins when one person shifts that work onto another person.

1. Natural jobs are the tasks no one can escape: sleeping, eating, washing, dressing and moving from place to place.
2. These jobs create further needs, such as food, clothing, shelter and fuel.
3. Food, clothes and houses do not appear by themselves. They need labour.
4. If each person did only a fair share of that labour, natural necessity would remain bearable.
5. Slavery begins when stronger people make others carry more than their fair share.
6. Shaw gives the examples of bees, horses and human beings to show how labour can be stolen.
7. So natural jobs produce necessary labour, but unfair control turns labour into slavery.

Natural jobs create human needs. Those needs require labour. When one person or class forces another to do more than its fair share of that labour, natural necessity becomes slavery.

Concept used. Shaw judges government by whether it protects ordinary people from exploitation. He then contrasts the ideal with actual government practice.

1. The object of honest government should be to stop people from being imposed upon.
2. It should prevent one person or class from shifting its burden onto another.
3. It should protect workers from being made to labour for another person's greed.
4. According to Shaw, most actual governments do the opposite.
5. They enforce slavery and call it freedom.
6. They regulate exploitation only enough to keep it within workable limits.
7. They may replace chattel slavery with wage slavery and then call the change a triumph of freedom.
8. They offer voting as proof of freedom, though workers' daily labour may not become lighter.

All honest governments should protect people from exploitation. Shaw says most actual governments enforce or regulate slavery, call it freedom, and give people political forms that do not remove economic dependence.

Concept used. A delusion is a false belief accepted as truth. Shaw says the ruling class believes its own flattering education more completely than workers do.

1. The enslaved classes suffer harsh facts in daily life.
2. They feel rent, low wages, unemployment and social insult directly.
3. The master class is educated to see itself as superior.
4. Its schools teach falsified history, dishonest political economy and snobbery.
5. A gentleman is taught that common people should serve him.
6. This education flatters his comfort and his pride.
7. Because the system benefits him, he honestly believes it is just.
8. So the propaganda meant to fool workers ends up fooling the privileged more deeply.

The master class is more deluded because its education flatters it. It is taught that its comfort, status and command over others are natural and deserved. Workers face harsher facts, so the illusion is less complete for them.

Concept used. Shaw refers to Aristotle to explain an old defence of hierarchy. The argument says common people obey better when rulers appear almost godlike.

1. Shaw says Aristotle held that law, order and government need visible hierarchy.
2. People in authority must appear different from common people.
3. They should be beautifully dressed, decorated, robed or uniformed.
4. They should speak with a special accent.
5. They should travel in first-class carriages, expensive cars or on fine horses.
6. They should avoid ordinary manual tasks, such as cleaning their own boots.
7. This display makes them seem superior.
8. Common people then become obedient because they are made to admire or fear that superiority.

According to the view Shaw attributes to Aristotle, common people accept law and order when rulers look grand, speak differently, live richly and appear almost godlike. Such display turns obedience into social habit.

Concept used. Freedom is not the absence of every rule. Shaw accepts laws that protect people equally from violence, robbery and disorder.

1. Shaw says laws restrict people in obvious ways.
2. Police, courts, taxes and public rules tell citizens what they may or may not do.
3. Yet reasonable laws can increase freedom when they protect everyone fairly.
4. A law against assault protects the body.
5. A law against robbery protects property and safety.
6. Laws against disorder protect ordinary movement and work.
7. The key condition is impartial administration.
8. If law applies equally, it prevents private force from taking over public life.

Reasonable and impartial laws contribute to freedom by protecting people from assault, robbery and disorder. They restrict harmful action so that ordinary people can live, move and work without fear.

Concept used. Shaw lists several limits on individual freedom: Nature, law, landlord, employer, money, fatigue and social class.

1. Nature restricts freedom through sleep, hunger, clothing, shelter and bodily need.
2. The laws of the land restrict actions through police, courts, taxes and penalties.
3. Landlords may restrict where a person lives and how a tenant behaves.
4. Employers restrict working hours, dress, conduct and livelihood.
5. A person can lose employment and be forced into unemployment.
6. Low wages restrict leisure because people lack money to enjoy free time.
7. Hard physical work restricts mental freedom because exhaustion produces sleep.
8. Social propaganda also restricts freedom by making people accept their condition as natural.

Individual freedom is restricted by natural needs, laws, landlords, employers, low wages, fatigue, unemployment and social propaganda. Shaw shows that economic power can limit a person more closely than political power.

Concept used. Krishnamurti says independent inquiry is difficult. Most people prefer the comfort of being told what is right.

1. People find it easier to conform because questioning demands energy.
2. Independent thinking requires alert perception and constant inquiry.
3. Many people feel safer inside ready-made beliefs.
4. Parents, teachers, priests, tradition and society provide those beliefs.
5. Following a guru transfers responsibility to someone else.
6. It also reduces fear because the follower feels guided.
7. Krishnamurti argues that this habit weakens intelligence.
8. Conformity may feel secure, but it prevents real freedom and happiness.

Most people conform because inquiry is hard and frightening. A guru or tradition gives ready-made answers, so people avoid the work of thinking, questioning and discovering truth for themselves.

Concept used. The inward struggle is the conflict between intelligence that wants to inquire and social pressure that demands conformity.

1. The inward struggle arises when a young person wants to think freely.
2. Parents, society and tradition place walls around that mind.
3. The person may feel one thing inwardly and do another thing outwardly.
4. He or she may want to question, but fear prevents action.
5. This creates conflict between intelligence and obedience.
6. It also creates pain, sorrow and frustration.
7. Krishnamurti says the struggle must be resolved through inquiry.
8. Only then can one live as an integrated individual.

The inward struggle is the conflict between the desire to question and the pressure to conform. A person feels one truth inside, but acts according to parents, tradition or society outside.

Concept used. This comparison is central to Shaw. Natural slavery comes from bodily needs. Unnatural slavery comes from human exploitation.

1. The slavery of man to Nature is unavoidable.
2. It comes from sleep, hunger, thirst, shelter, clothing and movement.
3. Nature's slavery is often pleasant because eating, sleeping, home and family can give joy.
4. This slavery falls on everyone, though not always equally.
5. The slavery of man to man is unnatural and unjust.
6. It begins when one person or class makes others bear its labour.
7. It is hateful to body and spirit because it produces exploitation.
8. It creates class war between workers and masters.
9. Nature makes humans work to live, but man-made slavery makes some people work so others may live idly.

Natural slavery is the unavoidable dependence on food, sleep, shelter and bodily need. The unnatural slavery of man to man is exploitation, where one person or class shifts its labour burden onto another.

Concept used. Shaw argues that private economic power can control a person more closely than the state does.

1. In the wider political sphere, citizens may vote and obey public laws.
2. Those laws may restrict conduct, taxes and public order.
3. In the personal sphere, Shaw says the landlord and employer have deeper power.
4. A landlord may control where a tenant lives and what social choices are allowed.
5. An employer may control clothes, hours, behaviour and livelihood.
6. The employer can dismiss a worker and push him into unemployment.
7. Low wages also control leisure because a worker cannot use free time without money.
8. Hard labour controls the mind by causing exhaustion.
9. So private economic power enters the home, body, habits and choices.

People are more closely controlled by landlords, employers, wages, hours of work, dress rules, dismissal and fatigue than by distant political institutions. Shaw says these private powers shape daily life more sharply than voting does.

Concept used. Shaw attacks slogans about freedom. He says real freedom needs leisure, money, fair work and protection from exploitation.

1. The first misconception is that freedom means doing whatever one likes all the time.
2. Shaw says Nature makes that impossible.
3. The second misconception is that voting alone makes people free.
4. A vote does not automatically reduce working hours or poverty.
5. The third misconception is that wage slavery is full freedom because chattel slavery ended.
6. The fourth misconception is that patriotic victories prove freedom.
7. The fifth misconception is that laws and elections remove the power of landlords and employers.
8. The sixth misconception is that being content with a vote and a dole is enough for real freedom.
9. For Shaw, freedom must be called leisure, with enough money to enjoy it after honest work.

Shaw debunks the ideas that freedom means doing as one pleases, that voting alone or a dole makes people free, that wage labour is automatically free, that patriotic history proves liberty, and that private economic control is harmless.

Concept used. Krishnamurti treats discipline as imposed resistance or conformity. True freedom needs direct inquiry, not a mental prison.

1. Most people think discipline will eventually produce freedom.
2. Krishnamurti rejects this idea.
3. He says discipline is the cultivation of resistance.
4. It creates walls of do's and don'ts inside the mind.
5. Freedom cannot exist inside a fixed frame.
6. A person who merely conforms, imitates or follows cannot discover truth.
7. True freedom needs the ability to question and experiment.
8. Discipline imposed from outside blocks that free inquiry.
9. So discipline and freedom contradict each other when discipline means fear-based conformity.

Krishnamurti sees freedom and discipline as contradictory because imposed discipline encloses the mind in rules, fear and imitation. Freedom begins only when one can question, inquire and discover truth directly.

Concept used. Inquiry means looking, questioning and discovering for oneself. Krishnamurti sees it as the path to intelligence.

1. Inquiry makes the mind active.
2. It asks a person to examine values instead of accepting them.
3. It breaks the prison walls of tradition.
4. It helps one see fear, imitation and self-interest clearly.
5. Through inquiry, a person discovers what is true from direct perception.
6. This awakens intelligence.
7. An intelligent person is not inwardly split between fear and outward conformity.
8. Such a person can respond to life with sensitivity.
9. Therefore inquiry leads to freedom because it removes dependence on borrowed authority.

Inquiry leads to true freedom by making the mind question, observe and discover truth for itself. It breaks blind conformity and awakens intelligence, so one is no longer ruled by fear, tradition or imitation.

Concept used. This is an opinion answer. A balanced response should connect Shaw's warning with present democratic life without dismissing the value of voting.

1. The idea can hold good in any country where formal rights exist but social inequality remains strong.
2. Voting is important because it gives citizens a political voice.
3. However, voting alone cannot remove poverty, poor education, caste prejudice, unemployment or unfair labour conditions.
4. People may be told they are free because elections take place.
5. Yet they may still depend on landlords, contractors, employers, moneylenders or social pressure.
6. Media slogans and party campaigns can also distract voters from economic questions.
7. In India, democracy has expanded many rights and protections.
8. But Shaw's warning remains useful when citizens mistake the act of voting for complete freedom.
9. Real freedom needs informed voting, fair law, education, livelihood security and social dignity.

Yes, the idea can partly hold good. Voting is vital, but it does not by itself end poverty, dependence, prejudice or exploitation. Citizens must use democratic rights to demand real social and economic freedom.

Concept used. Shaw warns that scientific production must respect natural limits. Human greed can trigger ecological consequences.

1. Shaw accepts that chemistry and machinery can increase production.
2. He also warns that Nature is not a passive storehouse.
3. If people exploit soil, air, water and living systems greedily, consequences may follow.
4. Chemical fertilisers can raise yield, but overuse can damage soil and water.
5. Industrial production can create goods, but also pollution and waste.
6. Modern examples include climate change, biodiversity loss, poisoned rivers and food-chain contamination.
7. Nature's tricks are the hidden limits that appear after careless exploitation.
8. Shaw's warning is therefore ecological before the word became common.

The statement means that scientific power must be used with restraint. Greedy exploitation of Nature may produce pollution, soil damage, climate stress and health risks that check human progress.

Concept used. This question applies Krishnamurti's idea of free inquiry to family and social life.

1. Respect for elders means listening with attention, gratitude and courtesy.
2. Elders may have experience that helps younger people avoid mistakes.
3. Blind obedience is different because it refuses to question.
4. It makes a person follow even when a rule is unfair, outdated or harmful.
5. Krishnamurti argues that intelligence grows through inquiry.
6. A young person should be free to examine values and decide responsibly.
7. Respect should therefore include honest conversation.
8. It should not become fear of parents, teachers or tradition.
9. A healthy relationship allows guidance without killing independent thought.

Respect means listening and valuing experience. Blind obedience means surrendering thought. A free and intelligent person can respect elders while still questioning, discussing and choosing responsibly.

Concept used. Shaw treats freedom through satire, examples and political argument. Krishnamurti treats it through direct reflection on the mind.

1. Shaw's style is argumentative, satirical and public.
2. He uses sharp examples from labour, voting, landlords, employers, history and class.
3. His tone is witty, ironic and often provocative.
4. He exposes false political freedom by showing economic dependence.
5. Krishnamurti's style is reflective, direct and inward.
6. He asks questions about discipline, tradition, fear and sensitivity.
7. His tone is calm but urgent.
8. He wants the student to look within and discover freedom through intelligence.
9. Thus Shaw treats freedom as a social and economic problem, while Krishnamurti treats it as a mental and spiritual problem.

Shaw uses satire, political argument and concrete social examples. Krishnamurti uses a reflective, questioning and inward style. Shaw attacks economic slavery; Krishnamurti examines mental conformity.

Concept used. Shaw persuades by piling up examples. This makes abstract ideas concrete and comic.

1. First main statement: no one is perfectly free because Nature imposes necessities.
2. Examples: we must sleep, wash, dress, undress, eat, drink and move from place to place.
3. These examples make the idea of natural limitation easy to see.
4. Second main statement: people are taught that their freedom was won by famous historical events.
5. Examples: Magna Charta, the Spanish Armada, King Charles's execution, the Bill of Rights, the American Declaration of Independence, Waterloo and Trafalgar.
6. Shaw uses the long list to expose patriotic storytelling.
7. Another possible section is the employer and landlord passage.
8. There Shaw shows personal control through estate rules, voting pressure, clothes, hours and dismissal.

One section states that perfect freedom is impossible, supported by examples of sleep, food, washing, dressing and travel. Another states that patriotic history is used to teach freedom, supported by examples such as Magna Charta, the Armada, the Bill of Rights and Waterloo.

Concept used. Personal pronouns bring the reader or listener into the argument. Both writers use direct address to make freedom feel personal.

1. Both texts use personal pronouns such as you, we, us and our.
2. Shaw uses you to confront the listener directly.
3. He makes the reader feel involved in labour, voting, wages and leisure.
4. Krishnamurti uses you to ask inward questions.
5. He makes students examine fear, conformity and sensitivity in their own lives.
6. This direct address is stronger than an impersonal style.
7. It prevents freedom from remaining only an abstract topic.
8. The reader feels personally questioned and responsible.
9. So the use of pronouns helps identification with the subject.
10. It also helps students relate the writers' thoughts on freedom, fear, conformity and responsibility to their own lives.

Yes. The personal pronouns make the topic immediate. Shaw's you confronts the citizen-worker, while Krishnamurti's you questions the student's mind. They also make students relate freedom, fear, conformity and responsibility to their own lives.

Concept used. A clause contains a finite verb or a verb group. Splitting long sentences helps students find the main idea and dependent ideas.

1. Sentence 1: There is no freedom / if you are enclosed by self interest or by various walls of discipline.
2. Sentence 2: When you see a servant carrying a heavy carpet / do you give him a helping hand?
3. Sentence 3: Very young children will eat needles and matches eagerly / but the diet is not a nourishing one.
4. Sentence 4: We must sleep / or go mad / but then sleep is so pleasant / that we have great difficulty in getting up in the morning.
5. Sentence 5: Always call freedom by its old English name of leisure / and keep clamouring for more leisure and more money to enjoy it in return for an honest share of work.
6. In sentence 1, the if clause is subordinate.
7. In sentence 2, the when clause is subordinate.
8. Sentence 3 contains two main clauses joined by but.
9. In sentence 4, but joins the larger clauses, while that we have great difficulty is a subordinate result clause depending on so pleasant.
10. Sentence 5 has two main imperative clauses; to enjoy it in return for an honest share of work is a non-finite purpose phrase within the second imperative.

The sentences split into the clauses shown above. The main method is to identify the finite verb groups, mark subordinate clauses such as if, when and that clauses, and avoid treating purpose phrases as full finite clauses.

Concept used. A rhetorical question has the form of a question but communicates a statement. Krishnamurti uses it to awaken self-examination.

1. Example 1: Do you have any feeling for them? The implied statement is that many students are not sensitive to poor workers.
2. Example 2: Do you feel you are much better than they? The implied statement is that class pride makes people look down on others.
3. Example 3: Don't you want to help them? The implied statement is that the listener should feel compassion and help.
4. Example 4: Are you actually so blinded that you do not know what is happening around you? The implied statement is that tradition and fear have blinded the listener.
5. Example 5: Can a man ever be free as long as he lives in a prison? The implied statement is that a framed or enclosed mind cannot be free.
6. These questions do not mainly seek factual answers.
7. They push the listener into moral awareness.

Rhetorical questions such as Do you have any feeling for them? and Can a man ever be free as long as he lives in a prison? imply statements. They say that insensitivity, class pride and mental enclosure destroy freedom.

Concept used. A sound sequence marks consonant sounds as C and vowel sounds as V. Consonant clusters count by sound, not by letters.

1. sleep: CCVC, with sl as two consonants and ee as one vowel sound.
2. thrift: CCVCC, with th and r before the vowel, then f and t after it.
3. snake: CCVC, with sn before the vowel.
4. task: CVCC, with one vowel followed by sk.
5. smear: CCVC, with sm before the vowel sound.
6. facts: CVCCC, with c, t and s sounds after the vowel.
7. sweet: CCVC, with sw before the vowel.
8. boasts: CVCCC, with oa as one vowel and sts after it.
9. strain: CCCVC, with str before the vowel.
10. street: CCCVC, with str before ee.
11. strangle: CCCVCCVC, split by sounds as str plus a plus ng plus g plus l plus a reduced vowel sound.
12. strengths: CCCVCCCC, with str before the vowel and ng, th and s after it.

sleep CCVC; thrift CCVCC; snake CCVC; task CVCC; smear CCVC; facts CVCCC; sweet CCVC; boasts CVCCC; strain CCCVC; street CCCVC; strangle CCCVCCVC; strengths CCCVCCCC.