... boasted “American state’s free — not India" (7)
I believe the answer is:
vaunted
'boasted' is the definition.
('vaunt' can be a synonym of 'boast')
'american state's free not india' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'american' could be 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names) and 'a' is found within the answer.
'not' could be 'nt' (synonyms) and 'nt' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for vaunted that I've seen before include "Boasted, famous" , "Boasted or bragged" .)