Opinion | The Next Chapter of Freedom: Data, Dignity, and Women’s Rights

Political freedom is only the beginning. For millions of Indian women, true freedom still depends on access, opportunity, safety and the power to make their own choices.

The Independence Day compels me to ask what freedom means in the lives of ordinary Indians. Political freedom was a necessary condition, but it was not entirely sufficient to bring personal freedom to the lives of women. As we know, the personal is political, and political freedom rings hollow if women don’t have the freedom to study, to work, to move safely, to choose whether and when to marry, to decide if and when to have children, and to live without the fear of violence or discrimination.

These freedoms are guaranteed in principle, but they are not experienced equally. A woman’s opportunities can be shaped not only by her gender, but also by where she lives, the caste and community she belongs to, her household income and her access to education, healthcare and employment. Public policy often recognises these disadvantages separately. Women constitute one category; caste another; poverty a third. Lived experience is rarely so neatly divided.

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