Language defines history. Its delicate, complicated neural pathways thrum with words that challenge the unipolar conservatism of the dictionary and the mischievous dissimulation of the Thesaurus. Freedom and Independence. Patriotism and nationalism. Détente and peace. Verbal offshoots used by politicians and sociologists populate national narratives. At 75, India is free. But it isn't independent, or 'atmanirbhar', by any stretch.
Freedom is easy-peasy. You let a caged parakeet out, but since it doesn't know how to forage for food, its independence is its curse. An independent journalist can be thrown in jail for being a free thinker. The Taliban prohibit women doctors from practising on pain of death and live hooded and shrouded; they are neither independent nor free. Independence is a paradox, redefined by freedom to become a contradiction. It's praxis is economic while freedom guarantees rights. Ironically, both are interdependent.
Enough of semantics. Logistics count.
Though free of the Raj yoke for over seven decades, over 2.6 million families are broke today. Even as the nation celebrates Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, there are 10.1 million child labourers in free India, and over 14 million people still entrapped in modern-day slavery, according to the Global Slavery Index (2014). In free India, 40 percent of a sample study of young rural students could not read or understand simple English sentences; natch, the best of corporate and foreign jobs are denied to them, hobbling their financial independence. Anyone with money in Bollywood is independent to express their creativity, but enjoys no freedom from trolls who clamour for the boycott of their films on flimsy pretexts. A Dalit in Independent India can vote, but doesn’t have the freedom to drink water from a separate pot kept for upper castes.
Poverty keeps Indians from being independent, and governments tame their choices by doling out freebies like computers, bicycles and mobile phones. Politicians depend on revdi to get or stay in power -- farm subsidies, direct cash transfers, free gas connections, housing subsidies: the works! India's free-ticket political ecosystem traps its citizens with co-dependency. Hence, power enslaves, absolute power enslaves absolutely.
Shashi Tharoor wrote that 35 million Indians lost their lives under the British rule from 1857-1947. The ravages of colonialism are unforgivable -- over 85 million famine-related Indian deaths during the Raj. In the Global Hunger Index 2021, India came 101 out of the 116 countries surveyed. Mr Modi has a tough task at hand if he has to keep his Independence Day pledge to create a developed India in 25 years.
In spite of the many black marks, there is hope for pervasive independence in free India. We have sent spacecraft to Mars. We have won all wars after 1962. We have a free press, even if it means tele-terrorists are free to viciously abuse the Opposition. Covid has killed nearly 6.4 million people worldwide, but India inoculated two billion people. We have much to be patriotic about. And also be ashamed of scoundrels who deny us the refuge and reclamation of the Idea of Equality that our freedom warriors fought, died and lived for. Total freedom doesn't guarantee total independence, but complete independence assures complete freedom.