Seventy years ago, India achieved political freedom from the British. It has, against the odds, maintained its unity and independence for these fraught decades. This is no mean achievement, given that few expected such success from the fledgling Indian state. But this minimal success — the maintenance of political freedom — has not been expanded upon in all these decades. In particular, Indians who have been granted political freedom have continued to be deprived of other aspects of freedom. The independence celebrated on August 15 is a strictly unidimensional thing.
The political freedom that Indians have understood as their right for
