Some more Azaadi please

75 years ago we freed ourselves from the British. And as we progressed as an independent nation, we continued to shake off other chains that bound us. This Independence Day, we asked some noted Indians about the shackles they’d be happy to be rid of.
Freedom for same-sex couples to marry
Parmesh Shahani, author, diversity and inclusion advocate
Freedom is something that my Constitution guarantees me but why is it that 75 years after independence, my fellow LGBTQIA citizens and I continue to have less rights than others? With Section 377 gone we are no longer considered ‘criminal’, but its abolition hasn’t allowed me to enjoy the rights and freedoms that other straight citizens enjoy in India.
For instance, we still don’t have LGBTQIA marriages that are recognised by our courts of law. Why is this so? We as queer citizens pay the same taxes, are as patriotic as others and have contributed equally to nation-building over decades. So why this disparity? Marriage rights would help me honour the sanctity of my relationship with my partner with whom I’ve been for many years. Why should I not be allowed to honour our relationship with marriage the same way my straight friends can?
Parmesh Shahani
It’s important legally as well. I’d like to leave whatever I have to my partner. I want my partner to make medical decisions on my behalf and not other family members. Because we’re not recognised, my partner has no locus standi. Some years down the line we may also want to adopt children of our own like queer citizens do in other parts of the world. Marriage equality would be a step towards societal acceptance and freedom. My wish this Independence Day is to live in an inclusive Indian society where parents accept their queer children and all our other institutions are also inclusive — colleges, workplaces, and more. And I want to see this change in my lifetime, because I’m tired of waiting!
Freedom to talk about sex
Paromita Vohra, filmmaker, founder of agentsofishq.com
What does it mean to be free to talk about sex? For too long, the definition of sexual freedom has been based on a stereotype of the sex-machine straight man. Speaking more freely about sex reveals the surprising and beautiful heterogeneity of human desire, liberating us from many sexual myths, templated behaviours, and faltu moralities, no matter what our gender or orientation. Sexual freedom means the possibility to understand one’s own sexual nature and craft a sexual journey true to that nature. How can we have that without a more wide-ranging conversation about sex?
Most of the time, acceptable conversation about sex is really about sexual violence, or through abstract terms like sexuality or empowerment. To talk of sex freely means to talk about all its aspects, pleasurable and painful, abstract and experiential, political and personal. Because sex is so tabooed, everything related to sexuality becomes secret. We remain ignorant about safe sex, hesitate to see doctors for sexual issues, are inhibited about talking to partners about our preferences or hurts or even contraception.

When sex and shame are intertwined, we are always dragged down by a sense of shame about our most human selves. We may compensate for that with aggression, or feel self-doubt in our consent. To speak freely about sex, is a path to acceptance of one’s whole self, an openness to love and sexual joy; and through that, a generous respect for others’ privacies and choices.
Freedom from poor wages
Manish Sabharwal, co-founder of TeamLease Services
India’s wonderful democracy is a child of a risky political experiment in 1947; no country had ever given votes to all citizens at birth. But our democracy has not produced mass prosperity because of a reckless economic experiment in 1955; the Avadi resolution ensured that our capital became handicapped without labour and our labour became handicapped without capital. Consequently, our 6.3 crore enterprises only translate to 22,500 companies with a paid-up capital of Rs 10 crore.
Poorna Swaraj 1.0 for employers came in 1991 when reforms ended the license raj. These reforms were impactful but incomplete; they deferred reforms to education, urbanisation, banking, infrastructure, and formalisation. Consequently, unemployment has become a poor indicator of labour market strength or weakness; our problem is “employed poverty” or poor wages.
Raising wages needs productive employers. Most economists obsess over the three factors of production of land, labour, and capital that employers need because they don’t truly understand the fourth factor of production of entrepreneurship, innovation, or what is called total factor productivity. Good employers — those with the productivity to pay good wages — are sabotaged by excessive regulatory cholesterol. The Indian state must revise its philosophy of prohibited till permitted, writing laws for rogues, and do less so it can do more. Poorna Swaraj 2.0 for employers will ensure that our 100th independence day in 2047 will celebrate both democracy and prosperity.
Freedom from entitlement
Urvashi Butalia, publisher, feminist
It’s been 75 years since this country was created with dreams of an equal and just society, but we still have a long way to go. It’s a truism to say the rich have got richer and the poor poorer, but like all truisms it is based on reality. It’s not only that the rich have become richer but that they think it gives them the right to ride roughshod over others who are placed differently. I often look at the part of South Delhi where I live. Over time, people who had modest homes have built palaces, and their small cars have changed into SUVs and Jaguars. They now think they own the roads and are impatient with pedestrians and the roadside pheri walas. Sadly, wealth has not brought with it compassion. This was so evident during Covid, when it was assumed that domestic workers and kabadiwalas spread the disease.
Urvashi Butalia
This sense of entitlement spills into human interactions. It’s when a man assumes a woman walking on a road is fair game. It’s what makes the rapist think he owns a woman’s body. It’s what makes the policeman be blatantly partisan — they know their entitlement (gained from being close to political power often) will protect them. Is this the freedom our forefathers and foremothers dreamt of when they thought up this country? Perhaps that is the question we should ask ourselves today.

Freedom from inequity in education
Anita Rampal, professor and former dean, department of education, DU
On this Independence Day, I would like us to renew the commitment of the Radhakrishnan Education Commission 1948 for nurturing an atmosphere of freedom as the basis of democracy, freedom of thought and inquiry for teachers and students, for education that develops the courage and morality of mind, to deliberate and debate even difficult controversial issues and strive for justice.
Anita Rampal
I would like a child’s fundamental right to education recognised as an entitlement rather than a reluctant dismal dole. Our country has forgotten the Constitutional promises made to our children, that education should be a transaction rather than transmission, that it should allow for freedom to learn from peers from different backgrounds and where equity is closely tied to quality.
The pandemic seems to have legitimised and deepened the divides in education. The national education policy was expected to build on the intent of the Right to Education Act but instead it completely contradicts it. An NCERT Alternative Curriculum for the pandemic says all children have phones.
Which country are we talking about? The fact is that children, and not a small minority, but a very large number have been completely abandoned by the system and there is no concern to reimagine and reopen schools for the younger ones, to rebuild their confidence and not heartlessly push them out. Online education is no education, it is at best coaching for the privileged, but that distance and isolation stunts the ability of learners to engage, think, relate with each other, and deeply diminishes the quality of learning.
Freedom from trolls
Sona Mohapatra, songstress, producer
In my childhood, a troll was an ugly-cute creature from stories by Enid Blyton. In my teen years, I was so in love with these mythical creatures from Scandinavian mythology that I owned a troll named Hidimbi, my only stuffed toy till date. Since then, trolls have gone on to mean abusive nasty people on social media, who showcase the worst underbelly of humankind under the cloak of anonymity. Their targets are usually women who they want to shame and scare into silence. To expect freedom from all trolls would be like expecting society to turn into La La Land, but there is no doubt that mass trolling and hate speech of any kind needs to be dealt with severely by social media platforms and as per the law of the land. Incidentally, Hidimba was a rakshasi (demon) in Mahabharata and a rather nice one. Also, my troll doll still lives with me and travels in my suitcase to concerts. She is my good luck charm!
Freedom from wanting family approval
The other day, I was messaging a friend. She is in her 40s, and in the last year has moved in with her parents for caretaking, like a lot of people have. The kind of messages we were exchanging weren’t about the immediate need for caretaking which is something you step up and you do, even if it’s hard. We were discussing the ways in which the pandemic has accelerated this situation where you have to embrace responsibility for family members who in other circumstances don’t approve of you for whatever reason -- it might be your choice to be single or your sexuality or your employment. The freedom to be yourself in your own family is something that we keep fighting for no matter how old we are. The approval you get from your family is this mirage you keep walking towards, thinking the oasis is around the corner but it doesn’t exist. The freedom that I think we need is if we could all switch off from our endless need of approval from our families.

How old do we have to be to let go of that? The sooner you let go of it, the easier it will be. You may be highly successful and well-loved among your friends, but your family may not approve of you. The freedom to say I have to be myself even if I never get full family approval is liberating. If I could get a genie and make that wish, I would make that wish for a lot of people I know. It’s very freeing because once you realise it doesn’t matter what you do, you can be free of that and do what makes you happy. You can be kind to the other party and also to yourself.
Freedom from inequality
Jean Drèze, Economics prof
The idea that all human beings are equal is quite simple, yet it has made little headway in India’s deeply hierarchical society. People continue to be sorted and graded everywhere like poultry eggs.
The only place where all Indian citizens are more or less equal is the polling booth. In a democracy, they are also supposed to be equal in other important areas like the police station, the court room and administrative offices. In practice, all these institutions function in one way for the privileged and some other way – often diametrically opposite – for the rest. The so-called justice system, a fountain of injustice for poor people, is a prime example.
Jean Dreze
Active social policies make it possible, in principle, to enlarge the spheres of relative equality. In many countries, for instance, most children are in the same school boat – they attend government schools of fairly even quality. Similarly, a National Health Service can help to ensure that we are all equal in times of illness. Here again, India has missed the bus.
The schooling system, especially, is stratified to no end, defeating its purpose as a leveller of social inequality.
India is saddled with a unique complex of entrenched inequalities, from extreme income and wealth disparities to gender bias and the caste system. It will take decades of struggle to bring about a more egalitarian social order. On the way, we can try to enlarge the domain of comparative equality.
Universal quality education would be a good start.
Freedom from the death penalty
Anup Surendranath, executive director, Project 39A, NLU
Freedom from the death penalty is ultimately the freedom from our own worst instincts. Our instinct for collective vengeance and retribution dehumanises us as a society. When something terrible happens to any of us, as individuals we might experience that need for revenge and that is perfectly legitimate. But as a collective and as a society, we should abandon this pursuit of vengeance. We tend to think of those who commit crimes as “bad people”.
A Surendranath
Of course, they are responsible for what they did, but so is society. Crime is a social phenomenon. To demonise offenders is a way to escape our collective responsibility. To abandon the death penalty is to free ourselves of the thought that more violence is the answer to complex social problems.
Freedom to joke
Munawar Faruqui, comedian
Every comedian should have the freedom to make people laugh. It is possible that the joke might not seem funny to you, and you have the freedom to get offended by it. How can I question that? So, the way I respect your freedom, you too should respect mine. As comics, our intention is not to say bad things.
Instead, we want an audience to come to our shows to laugh and forget their life’s stresses and sorrows. This is our only job. Let us do it.
More internet freedom
Mishi Choudhary, lawyer
Our lives have now been fundamentally transformed by our connection through the Internet to everyone else, everywhere, where no one needs to get permission to collaborate, trade, or create. At its best, technology can be used to educate every brain on earth. At its worst, it can be used to create an authoritarian society where every face is watched and every thought is monitored all the time. In the past few years, Digital India has become synonymous with control instead of empowerment. Whether it’s shutting the Internet at the drop of a hat, or weaponisation of social media by political parties or surveillance of citizens, technology has been used to create more problems for citizens than solutions. My fellow citizens: You must not give it control of the Internet, because somewhere in the inevitable future a bad government will use the Internet to destroy freedom in our society.
Freedom to access affordable healthcare
K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India
Citizenship confers a right to health, which can be realised only when society, represented by the government, ensures an efficient and equitable health system based on the principles of universal health care. A predominantly tax funded single payer system of pre-paid healthcare lowers the financial barrier to accessing needed care. Government should be the guarantor of accessible and affordable healthcare, even if it is not the sole provider. Infrastructure, health workforce, equipment, drugs and supplies and reliable data systems will create an efficient healthcare system, while coherent policies on the social, environmental and commercial determinants of health will promote population health. Freedom fulfils her promise when every person is assured of living conditions that protect health and services which promptly provide needed care without barriers of access and affordability. India must realise that goal soon.