Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Pratap Bhanu Mehta is Contributing Editor at the Indian Express. He has been vice-chancellor of Ashoka University and president, Centre Policy Research, New Delhi, one of India's top think tanks. Before he started engaging with contemporary affairs, he taught political theory at Harvard, and briefly at JNU. He has written extensively on intellectual history, political theory, law, India's social transformation and world affairs. He is the recipient of the Infosys Prize, the Adisheshiah Prize and the Amartya Sen Prize.
Sat, Feb 20, 2021
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: A few years ago, India would not have thought this way because of its desire to court the United States. But the context has now changed. There is a genuine ideological push to Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Sat, Feb 06, 2021
P B Mehta writes: The overwhelming political power you have will not be seriously challenged in the near future, notwithstanding a few social movements.
Sat, Jan 30, 2021
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: The scenes at the Red Fort may have been disturbing. But the real darkness on the horizon is not the protest, or the turn it might have taken. It is the turn Indian democracy is taking, almost as if it is on the road to perdition.
Tue, Jan 26, 2021
Bhimrao: "I thought we would keep God and Identity out of the Constitution. Didn’t we, Jawahar? So what are we celebrating on Republic Day? Ethnic Majoritarianism and Authoritarianism?”
Mon, Jan 18, 2021
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: The issues in the farm bills are complex. But no matter which side you are on, you should now worry about how the Supreme Court is interpreting its function. The court is, perhaps unintentionally but damagingly, seeking to break the momentum of a social movement.
Fri, Jan 08, 2021
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: It is hard to shake off the feeling that liberal democracy in America will continue to come under more stress, riven by its own internal conflicts and confusion of values.
Fri, Jan 01, 2021
PB Mehta writes: Outside of political contexts there is enough vitality, creativity and reciprocity, where the people are expressing themselves in all their concreteness, individuality and complexity, more than enough to sustain faith in the face of political disillusionment.
Sat, Dec 26, 2020
PB Mehta writes: What the Court is trying to do, in an interesting way, is to argue that for its purposes, the opposition between merit and reservation needs to be deconstructed — not because there is no such thing as merit (as defenders of reservation claim), or because there should not be reservation (as critics of reservation claim).
Thu, Dec 10, 2020
It is true that the Centre disproportionately controls resources in India; but very few states have shown a zeal to increase their own financial headroom by utilising whatever powers they might have on taxation.
Sun, Nov 29, 2020
Obama’s vivid, novelistic writing brings to life his fairytale political career from state legislator to America’s first Black president.
Sat, Nov 28, 2020
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: The sense that the farmers will be at the receiving end of these changes rather than shaping them propels the need for a show of strength. If they lose, they are marginalised forever.
Sat, Nov 21, 2020
The former Union minister and veteran journalist’s latest book, ‘Preparing for Death’, is both a contemplation of and an anthology on death
Wed, Nov 18, 2020
This phenomenon is not just a matter of individual judges or individual cases. It is now a systematic phenomenon with deep institutional roots.
Sat, Nov 07, 2020
PB Mehta writes: The character of the Republican Party has changed deeply and profoundly. The House of Cards might have been a dystopian vision of a ruthless quest for power by individuals. But the current wave of public ruthlessness in American politics is of a different order.
Sat, Oct 31, 2020
PB Mehta writes: Liberal states are right to take actions against the perpetrators of violence, and should worry about the atmosphere that nourishes a fear of freedom. But if they are doing it in the name of liberal principles, they will need to, as much as possible, adhere to those principles.
Fri, Oct 23, 2020
Despite economic headwinds, it has not been easy to use the economy as a point with which to attack the Modi government. It has still positioned itself as a breaker of the status quo.
Sat, Oct 10, 2020
It is not to save us, but to expose the fact (as her best collections, Ararat, Meadowlands, and The Wild Iris, remind us) that we are entirely at the mercy of our own passions; even a God would give up ordering them.
Fri, Sep 25, 2020
Those who really incite roam free. But all of us who saw the Constitution as a site of hope are potential terrorists now.
Tue, Sep 22, 2020
If the events of the last few days are any guide, the Indian temple of democracy will continue to be ground into the dust
Sat, Sep 19, 2020
PB Mehta writes: The big lesson of the last two decades is that an over-reliance on legal instruments to solve fundamentally social and political problems often backfires. In the case of free speech, this is even more so.
Sat, Sep 12, 2020
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Chinese aggression is a problem for the world. India has announced it intends to break the shackles of the past.
Sat, Sep 05, 2020
PB Mehta writes: Predictably, both the Congress and BJP are claiming to be victim of Facebook’s censorship policy. But the truth is this: Censorship, whether public or private, will always invite charges of partisanship.
Wed, Aug 26, 2020
Politics of belief is different from one based on fact and interest. It has an underlying cultural nihilism
Tue, Aug 11, 2020
PB Mehta writes: To take religion seriously is to preserve the conditions of religious freedom for all, letting each person discover the law of their own Being. I tremble at the thought of a politicised public sphere taking religion seriously.
Wed, Aug 05, 2020
They will say Ram is a national symbol, a symbol of Hindu pride. But did Ram consent to being converted to something as banal and nasty as the symbol of an ethnic nationalism? Ayodhya's Ram temple is a monument to exclusion, a brute majoritarianism subordinating others.
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