The Two Sides of Independent India.

It’s 15th August. A day we all know well.

My favorite memory of the day is from back when I was in school. I couldn’t wait to collect the snacks that were distributed there. Back then, we didn’t really understand the importance of the day as kids. The main reason for the excitement was that you’d get the day off. What’s a better combo for a kid? A holiday and snacks to collect.

My friend’s dad was in the police, and there was a police station right beside my school. We’d go there too, just to collect more snacks. Such fun times. I really think the life we had as kids was the best. As they say, the less you know, the better.

Fast forward a decade plus, and Independence Day looks a little different now. People wait to post a bunch of Instagram stories about how proud they are of independent India, how far we’ve come, and how much we’ve progressed since independence.

But did we, really? At least on paper. And every year, we also talk about how many years it’s been since we gained independence. This year, it’s 79. That’s a long time. Just to keep the perspective clear and show how big that number is, Hiroshima was devastated by the atomic bomb in 1945, yet underwent an enormous reconstruction over roughly the next 15 years.

Now you know how big that number is.

But is the number of years we’ve been independent really a good metric for how far we’ve come? More importantly, does independence look the same for everyone living in this country? Unless you’re living under a rock, the state of the country is very evident to everyone, even to people watching from the outside. So what does it feel and look like to actually live here? Let’s find out.

The Freedom to Choose

Let’s start with something very basic: choice.

What do you want to study? What do you want to do for work? Which city do you want to live in? Do you want to get married? Who do you want to marry?

These are pretty normal questions for the rest of the world. And at some point, we have all asked them ourselves. But even having these questions to answer is a privilege.

For the majority of India, life isn’t really a series of choices. It’s a series of circumstances. You take whatever your circumstances throw at you. You study at the school that’s available to you. You take the work you can find. You go to the hospital you can afford, and most of the time, you marry the person your family chooses. See how there isn’t really a choice here?

And that’s probably the first of the two Indias. An India where independence gives you the freedom to choose what you want to do with your life. And in the other, you’re technically just as free, but your circumstances have already made most of those choices for you. And the latter is where the majority of our population is. They have a circumstantial life, not a chosen one.

I’m able to make those choices, and for me, to even be writing this is a privilege, and I recognize it very clearly.

Consumption and Survival

September is close, and a new version of the iPhone is going to be launched globally. And just as every year, we are going to see thousands of people queuing outside Apple stores to get it. This is one India.

Now, the other India, which ranks 102nd out of 123 countries in the Global Hunger Index, is right beside it. People queue here too, not to get the latest iPhone, but merely to get one meal for the day.

Two Indias, right there.

And the iPhone is just one example. For a growing part of India, spending ₹500 on a coffee, getting groceries delivered in ten minutes, or taking a holiday every few months is no longer a luxury. It’s just regular life.

For the other India, the same ₹500 means something entirely different. It could mean a week’s worth of food, a debt someone has taken on, or the wage for a full day of hard work.

So, we have cafés, but also an undeniable hunger crisis. We have holidays, but also debt. And we have quick commerce, where one India is serving the other.

Buying Your Way Out

The kind of infrastructure we have in India has made owning a car less of a luxury and more about convenience and safety. Our roads and public transport are so bad that if you can afford to avoid them, you probably will.

Let’s talk about government schools and how bad their state is. About 94,000 government schools were closed between 2014 and 2024. And you may ask why? There are many different reasons, but the state of government schools themselves isn’t hard to see.

Many lack basic educational and infrastructural standards. There aren’t many people whose first option would be to choose a government school. But as I mentioned earlier, not everyone has options. One India must go to government schools, and the other doesn’t even have to think about it. They can afford private schools, no matter how expensive they are.

And this isn’t only about schools. It’s the same with hospitals, housing, public transport, electricity, water, and even security. If the public option doesn’t work well enough and you have the money, you can simply pay for a better one.

Again, two Indias. One India depends on the system. The other can afford to avoid it.

Access to Opportunity

Today, you could be sitting in a small room somewhere in India and working for a company thousands of kilometers away. All you really need is a computer, an internet connection, and the skills to do the job.

At least, that’s what we like to believe. But for the majority of people, even getting there is a far stretch. How do you get there when so many people don’t even get a basic education? How do you get access to the internet when you spend your entire day uncertain about where your next meal is coming from? How do you access global opportunities without English?

We all know what that means. If you’ve had limited exposure to English growing up, it already limits who you can talk to, what opportunities you can access, what connections you can make, and how well you can communicate globally.

This is where one India is increasingly connected to global opportunities, while the other struggles to even participate. Where you were born, how financially stable you are, your family circumstances, your education, and the language you speak all affect how much of that opportunity you can actually access.

Again, two Indias. Opportunities may be global, but access to them is not.

Freedom, With Permission

Freedom. The whole point of independence. And yet, we gotta ask ourselves today: are we really free?

Are we really free to make our own choices in life? Are women really free to live the way they want in this country? Are minorities just as free? Are we free to oppose the government?

If the answer is yes, why does that freedom look so different depending on who you are?

Let’s start with something as basic as choosing who you want to marry. Legally, two adults are free to marry whoever they want. But we all know that’s not how it works for the majority of India. Your caste matters. Your religion matters. Your family matters. Your family’s status in society matters, and societal backlash matters. And here’s the worst part: people with a broken marriage are often making these decisions for the people who actually love each other and want to live with each other. Irony?

The same goes for moving out, choosing what you want to study, what you want to wear, what you want to eat, or even what you want to believe in. You’re free to make these choices on paper, but exercising that freedom has its own consequences. And that’s exactly why people don’t even try to exercise them in the first place.

Um okay, but maybe it has gotten better for women, right?

A man can tell his family he’s going out at 10 PM. A woman of the same age might have to ask if she can. And even if nobody stops her, she has an entirely different question to think about: is it really safe out there? We don’t even have to look this up. We all know how difficult it is for women to live in this country. Even a basic life, let alone the one they want.

And the same difference follows women everywhere. What they wear, where they go, who they meet, whether they can travel alone, whether they can live alone, and if they can work after marriage. Again, they’re free to do all of these things on paper. But how free and independent are you if exercising that very freedom requires someone else’s permission?

Alright, what about the freedom to disagree?

Supporting the government is your right, and so is opposing it. You should be able to criticize the people running the country without having to prove that you still love the country. A government and a country aren’t the same thing. They’re public servants elected to work for you and paid by your taxes.

And yet, we are at a point where supporting the government can make you a nationalist, while opposing it makes you anti-national. The same freedom of political opinion exists for both people on paper, but isn’t treated that way.

Do I even have to talk about minorities?

Your religion, caste, language, or community determines how comfortably you can exercise the same freedom everyone else has. And yes, it has gotten worse in 2026. We were supposed to have flying cars by now, but here we are.

Again, two Indias. One has freedom. The other has freedom with conditions attached.

The India We Don’t See

Two Indias exist, and they are very real. We just happen to see one a lot more than the other. And it depends on your ability to see things beyond what’s shown.

We see the India of UPI, quick commerce, startups, new highways, airports, cafés, global companies, and a growing economy (on paper). And some of those are true. We have progressed in some areas, but are mere technological advances really progress?

I compared how Japan bounced back in 15 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki when starting this post. Now compare that to how small our progress as a country looks. India’s independence and Japan aren’t directly related here. It’s about the progress a country is supposed to make over a period of time that’s getting closer to a century.

And right beside it, there’s another India. An India still worried about its next meal, still worried about whether it’s safe to go out, still worried about loving someone, still worried about moving out, still worried about who their partner is going to be, still worried about whether they can work, still dependent on broken public systems, and still without access to many of the opportunities the other India takes for granted.

This is exactly why two people living in the same country can have completely different answers when you ask them how India is doing. It depends on which India they live in. It also depends on which India they are interested in. As they say, ignorance is bliss. If you completely ignore the other India, you will never know the other India exists.

I don’t think the real measure of our independence is how far one India has come, but how far the other still has to go.

Regardless, Happy Independence Day!