Freedom my friends is still a battle and not a tricoloured celebration, yet.  

They say to educate your daughters and make them independent and probably then, the world will zip up and shut down their opinions. But who knew power could never bring pride, at least in a woman’s case. For years, women have suffered incessantly for picking that “career,” marrying “that guy,” wearing “those clothes,” or even breathing. This deeply rooted mentality of society, yelling at women with the words–”You’re not good enough,” is often visible at family get-togethers, and dinner table conversations, where a woman’s achievement is diluted down for men to gulp it down their throats.

Remember, the many times female actresses have questioned the questionnaire about their redundant query of how their lives have changed after “marriage” or giving “birth.” Well, it is proof enough that freedom runs through class, and those in power, still struggle to have one. For years, women have been called “gold diggers,” for loving a filthy brat, “unlucky,” when their celebrity husbands lost a match or “unfaithful” when a marriage ended up in a divorce. The man in the picture exits the chat, as quickly as I do, when that creepy man enters my Instagram DM.

The scrutiny around women’s bodies, behaviours and even baby bumps has been baffling. Well, it is pretty close to burning the two brain cells that I am struggling to keep intact. Through news headlines flashing on India’s most esteemed publications, is when I am made aware of this lack of freedom. As we celebrate Independence Day, marking 78 years of free India, women across societal statures and geographical boundaries, starve to live freely. The latest example is the brutal Kolkata doctor rape case, which brings the dark reality of “modern India” to the newspaper front pages.

Besides finding our cities safe, the internet has continued to be a dead, dark hole for women, offering an unpleasant time to every strata. I often struggle to understand why women holding the highest forms of power and showcasing heroic achievements are also judged to live the life they dreamt about. The latest example was actress Sobhita Dhulipala’s engagement ceremony with actor Naga Chaitanya. It was beneath the lovely pictures of this brewing romance, where trolls bashed Sobhita, engraved horrid lines and painted her post with shameful words, for being the “other woman.” Naga, another megastar of India, who perhaps was getting engaged for the second time, and was already divorced, wasn’t called “loose” or “emotionless” which a woman in his spot would’ve been labelled as.

Other instances include actress Sonakshi Sinha’s inter-caste marriage with actor Zaheer Iqbal, which turned into a fiasco of political and cultural war between Hindus and Muslims. The immense shaming pushed Sinha to close the comments under her beautiful wedding pictures, describing the cruelty that Indian society still stands for. And while shaming an actress for her personal choices and decisions of falling in love wasn’t enough, the internet panned its magnifying glass over actress Deepika Padukone, who despite being Bollywood’s highest-paid star, was shamed for faking her pregnancy, questioned about the “father” of her child, and slammed for wearing heels in her third trimester.

This ever-lasting impact of patriarchy puts women down in every way possible. Dissecting their achievements, tearing apart the feathers they carefully stitched to their hat. Not just that, but for a woman like Jaya Bachchan, who is known for her no-nonsense opinions, to be addressed as Mrs Jaya Amitabh Bachchan in the parliament, is proof patriarchy is deeply embedded in our society. And freedom my friends is still a battle and not a tricoloured celebration, yet.