Independence Day Special: What Freedom Means To Me
This Independence Day, we asked a select group of voices to reflect on what freedom means to them today—personally, privately and beyond the political
Jeet Thayil
HOW PRIVILEGED ARE we to discuss the nuances of freedom, to discuss the sacred idea of freedom rather than its secret reality. How privileged to talk about freedom as if it were a choice, to debate the freedom of thought, to insist upon and impose the freedom of our religion. How privileged to take for granted the freedom of utterance, the freedom of movement, the freedom to eat the food of our choice, the freedom to eat... How privileged to think about freedom as if it were an intellectual exercise. Because here we are in 2025, almost eighty years after Independence, when so many Indians still live under the strictures of poverty, indentured servitude and hunger. So many of us still afflicted by the lifelong prison of caste. Until all of us are free, none of us is free.
Manu S Pillai
FREEDOM TO ME, AT this moment, is really the freedom to think. To be spared the limits of ‘isms’ and ideological conformity of all stripes; to grant the mind the right to unpoliced curiosity; and to be free to make mistakes. As individuals we evolve, but in the age of social media, past opinions and ideas become a millstone around the neck, as if a person cannot reconsider, reform or re-express feelings; as if we must descend from the womb with perfect views, when really the intellect goes through its own complex journeys. Freedom, in that sense, is also the right to be flawed—with the necessary corollary that we must be willing to accept others’ flaws as well.
Aatish Taseer
THE ROOM THAT WAS to become the locus of my greatest personal freedom started life as little more than a cupboard—an uncommonly large storage space in a small house in the Hudson Valley. A friend of mine, with real-world skills, took one look at it and offered to punch a window through its exterior wall— and—lo! – the light poured in and the attic-like room became my study. I have worked in many different places over the course of my life, big, small, luxurious and impoverished, but never has a room captured the enclosed intensity writers need to work out of as much as this one. It is a retreat, a burrow, a womb. When I’m away from it, I cast my mind back to it, returning to the simple joy of being enclosed within its slanted walls, and being given a new lease on life by that one act that has always been my salvation— the act of creation.
Anirudh Kanisetti
WHAT USE IS FREEDOM of speech if we have no guarantee our thoughts, or our childrens’, can be free? Citizens of a free country would not be told what to think by ruling interests, either in media or in their textbooks. They would not have to consume misinformation, rage and hate in order to feed a corporation’s bottom line. Free minds would not be tearing up their history along religious, caste and linguistic fractures. The Constitution, as it has been read in decades since Independence, guarantees us liberty of thought—indeed, a rare and remarkable promise in the march of centuries. Once this was a right haltingly reserved for the privileged few, and there is no guarantee that this will not become the case again. When history rhymes, it is usually because most of us have been convinced to recite the same old script.
Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi
PRIVACY IS FREEDOM. Prosper in private. What people cannot see, they cannot sabotage. Real artists disappear. Praise is a pothole. Be your best where no one can see you. Invisibility is independence. Most people judge—it’s your job to be free from the weight of opinion. That’s freedom, too. Sit alone. No phone. No book. Living in your own company liberates you from having to attend dinner parties. Let me say it again: Avoid dinner parties at all costs
R. Raj Rao
Freedom is a contentious word. Are we really allowed to be free? One of the first things I tell my postgraduate and research students is to determine how much personal freedom they enjoy on the various axes of religion, ethnicity, class, caste, tribe, gender, sexuality, disability, and so on. Most of them discover that they are rather low on the freedom index. Freedom matters to me personally in terms of two things that are a part of my life: writing, and radical queerness. As a writer, the most alarming question that I find myself asking is whether I have been forced to resort to self-censorship. Unfortunately, the answer today seems to be yes. Often, I think of something I want to say, either through fiction or poetry, or through a journalistic piece, and then find myself mulling over the consequences. Will the work land me in jail, as it has so many others? I tell myself that I have been lucky not to get into trouble all this while, probably because my work hasn't been noticed, but I shouldn't take this for granted and be foolhardy. The radical queerness that I subscribe to goes far beyond merely decriminalizing same-sex love or legalizing gay marriage. It is about destabilizing normativity--not just heteronormativity, but normativity in general--and inhabiting an ideal world. It's even about being conferred the status of an 'outlaw' in order to resist attempts to be co-opted. As I say in the Prologue to my collection National Anthem and Other Poems (Bloomsbury, 2019):
I'm a terrorist of the spirit.
I know not how to hold a gun
But know how to wield the pen.
My colour isn't red,
the colour of blood,
It's blue,
the colour of ink.
Atharva Pandit
THIS ALMOST certainly is a cliché, but I associate the idea of freedom with the idea of choice, and the power to make it. Choice is a very loaded, political word. My idea of freedom is when it ceases to be that. When my choice to eat, pray and love is not called into question because of society’s structural parameters. When I have the choice to choose my way of life, my methods of expression, my sovereignty over my decisions is when I feel free. Then again—and this must always be said—I am better placed than most individuals in this country, who need constantly to weigh their choices—about where they pray, what they eat, who they love. When they can make those choices without the constant calculations of consequences, is when I would say we have found freedom as a country.
Akhil Katyal
ON SELF-CENSORSHIP
A spider creeps
up my toe.
A snail crawls up my shin.
A locust enters
my navel.
A scorpion sits on my chest.
Fear comes
out my mouth.
Ankur Warikoo
FREEDOM, TO ME, IS LAYERED. It is financial—being able to say no to toxic, purposeless work without fearing the bills. It is the space to pause, reflect and choose a path I truly want, with people I truly value. It is social—the fact that I am surrounded by those who don’t judge, who challenge me yet hold me steady. And it is deeply personal—being at peace with who I am, sitting with my thoughts without fear and no longer chasing validation to feel whole.
To read more stories from Esquire India's August 2025 issue, pick up a copy of the magazine from your nearest newspaper stand or bookstore. Or click here to subscribe to the magazine.