Freedom isn’t a feeling. It’s a practice.

Independence Day comes with the usual markers: the flag is hoisted, the anthem is sung, and for a strong moment, we feel patriotic. We look back at how far we’ve come as a country.

But rarely do we ask a more personal question: how free are we in how we live, behave, and share space?

Not in the constitutional sense. In the everyday sense.

Because while we’ve earned our freedom, we still haven’t quite learned how to enjoy it well. Especially when it comes to something so basic and so powerful as civic sense.

That unspoken instinct of doing what’s right for the greater good. In many ways, it is our collective sixth sense. It guides us not just through the laws of the land but through the unspoken agreements that help us live better together.

But it often gets overlooked. We’ve all been there. The red light that’s treated like a suggestion to drive faster. The plastic bottle tossed out of a car window. The queue someone skips because “arrey, I’m in a rush.” The elevator that closes just as someone else is about to enter. Little moments, repeated daily, that quietly chip away at the idea of freedom being shared.

Because when freedom is used selfishly, it stops being freedom for someone else.

Some of this is habit. Some of it is history. Our cities carry colonial-era values that prized hierarchy over equality, control over collaboration. We inherited infrastructure designed for very different times; narrow streets not made for today’s traffic, neighbourhoods built without footpaths because walking was never prioritised.

In the rush to modernise, we often built over instead of building better. Lutyens’ Delhi’s wide roads and green expanses tell one story; the overgrown drainage systems and encroached spaces tell another.

Add to that the cultural fractures; casteism, wealth disparity, a spectrum of education that often overlooks practical life skills in favour of rote learning; and you have a civic sense that feels…optional.

It’s been over seven decades since we first raised our own flag. Long enough to know that freedom isn’t a static achievement, but a living, breathing responsibility.

Now is the time to ask harder questions; not about where we’ve been, but about where we want to go.

Questions about the cities we’re building - can they be navigated on foot, or only by car?

About the education system - is it only to memorise and pass exams, or also to live in a shared world? About public spaces - are they truly public, or quietly claimed by a few?

Because independence is not just the absence of control. It’s the presence of systems, values, and habits that make life better for everyone, not just those who can afford it.

This is where the everyday test comes in. True civic sense isn’t about policing each other; it’s about self-motivation.

Choosing to wait your turn even if you could get ahead. Slowing down because the speed limit exists for a reason, not blocking a zebra crossing because you know it’s meant for someone else’s right of way.

It’s in the unglamorous, unfilmed decisions we make every day that freedom is either strengthened or weakened.

If we’re honest, the real audience here isn’t just us, it's the generations to come. The kids who will learn what freedom looks like not from history books, but from how they see it being lived. Who will see red and know it means stop, because they’ve seen grown-ups do it. Who will inherit not only the soil beneath their feet, but the shared spaces, systems, and unspoken agreements we leave behind.

Because, what we celebrate today endures only if we choose to protect it tomorrow 

Civic sense is, and always has been, our collective sixth sense; the compass that keeps our freedom pointed in the right direction.

It’s what turns independence from a date on the calendar into something lived, shared, and renewed every single day. Because freedom isn’t a box we checked in 1947. It’s not a “done” thing. It’s in progress, evolving with every choice we make; on the road, in our neighbourhoods, in how we treat each other.

The truest way to honour it may be this: to remember that our freedom grows stronger not when we guard it for ourselves, but when we extend it to everyone around us.

Happy Independence Day!