Every year on Independence Day, I find myself wondering about two different worlds. One is the world of the nation of flags, speeches, celebrations and the nostalgia of freedom from colonial rule. The other is a more intimate world, the world of lived experiences, where independence feels limited, unevenly distributed and often denied. These two worlds keep floating in my head, conflicting and yet coexisting.

As someone who comes from a Scheduled Caste background, I often try to understand independence through the memories and histories of marginalised communities. What did freedom mean for us before the departure of the alien ruler? And what did it become afterwards as we remain dependent on other forms of power, of caste hierarchies, social exclusion and inherited inequalities? For many people, independence is a feeling, a philosophical idea and even a state of mind. Perhaps it can be, if one possesses land, labour, resources and social acceptance. But for the rest of us, independence remains a deeply political and material question. It remains, in many ways, a state affair.

I often ask myself: How independent does my state want me to be? What freedoms does it encourage, and what........

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