Through The Economic Lens: India’s Unfinished Economic Freedom

Mumbai: “A nation becomes truly free when its citizens possess not merely the right to choose their rulers, but the means to choose their futures.”

As India prepares to celebrate its eightieth Independence Day this Saturday, August 15, the tricolour will once again rise into the monsoon sky carrying memories that cannot be measured in money. It remembers sacrifice, struggle and that extraordinary midnight when a civilisation recovered the right to determine its own destiny. Yet economics asks Independence Day a harder question: when does the freedom of a country become the freedom of its citizens?

At Independence, India had about 34 crore people, overwhelmingly rural and poor. Ordinary families understood rising prices, but inflation was experienced principally as dearer rice, wheat, cloth or kerosene — not through today’s vocabulary of Consumer Price Index (CPI), repo rates, GDP forecasts and market capitalisation.

Nearly eight decades later, roughly 147 crore Indians inhabit another economic universe.

India’s nominal GDP reached Rs 346.36 lakh crore in 2025-26, with real growth of 7.7%. The current GDP should range between $3.95 trillion to $4.2 trillion.

Its equity market commands several trillion dollars in capitalisation. MSMEs contribute 31% of GDP and 49% of exports.

India trades with more than 200 countries and territories, while public capital expenditure has risen from about Rs 2 lakh crore in 2014-15 to Rs 12.2 lakh crore budgeted for 2026-27.

These are more than statistics. They are entries in Independence’s economic balance sheet.

India’s transformation belongs to generations: institution-building after 1947; economic liberalisation in 1991; successive reforms thereafter; and, since 2014, accelerated infrastructure development, digitalisation, financial inclusion, GST, UPI, formalisation and expanding trade agreements.

Yet Samudra Manthan offers an enduring economic metaphor. The ocean was churned for amrita, but before the nectar appeared came halāhala — poison.

India’s amrita is visible in industry, technology, capital markets, banking, infrastructure, enterprise and aspiration. Its halāhala survives in poverty, unemployment, inequality, corruption, bureaucratic friction, delayed justice and unequal opportunity.

Development succeeds not merely by producing the nectar, but by confronting the poison.

There is another poverty GDP never records — the poverty of dignity. Exploitation existed before Independence, and political freedom did not automatically remove it from the workplace. Even today, an economically vulnerable, inexperienced or poorly informed worker can be manipulated through fear, insecurity or humiliation. The damage may never enter a company's accounts, yet --it can diminish confidence, families and human potential.

Economic freedom must therefore include freedom from exploitation — of the wage, of vulnerability and of the human mind.

A good employer does more than purchase labour; a good employer develops human capability. Profit earned by raising people is enterprise. Profit extracted by diminishing them eventually becomes an economic and social liability.

There is nothing wrong with wealth. India needs profitable companies, successful entrepreneurs and risk-taking investors. Workers, equally, owe enterprise honesty, discipline, skill and productivity. Capital deserves a fair return; labour deserves a fair reward. Economic freedom creates responsibilities on both sides of the payslip.

Political will, meanwhile, cannot transform 147 crore lives by itself. Ministers can initiate reform and Parliament can legislate it; only competent institutions and an accountable bureaucracy can translate reform into everyday reality.

Trust itself is economic capital. Investors need predictable rules, entrepreneurs timely decisions, MSMEs affordable credit and citizens fair institutions.

Nor can any developed economy confidently claim complete economic freedom. Wealthier societies, too, wrestle with inequality, affordability, insecure work and unequal opportunity. Economic freedom is not a destination reached merely by crossing an income threshold.

Political freedom can have an Independence Day. Economic freedom never does.

We are all proud Indians; our greater patriotism is to make freedom meaningful for everyone.

India has succeeded enormously. India is still struggling profoundly.

Both truths can stand beneath the same flag.

Ultimately, economic freedom cannot be measured by GDP, Sensex levels or corporate profits alone. It exists when education becomes opportunity, enterprise finds capital, work earns dignity and families can face tomorrow without fear.

In 1947, India won the freedom to choose its destiny. Its unfinished task is ensuring that every Indian gains the economic freedom to choose theirs. The tricolour tells the world that India is free. The economy must make that freedom real.