Columnists

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.

Udaipur murder: The executioner’s strategy

Thu, Jun 30, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Will to condemn this act must be accompanied by commitment to build a free society. Otherwise Kanhaiya’s executioners win

Mohammed Zubair’s arrest is an inversion of justice

Thu, Jun 30, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: This arrest has to be seen as part of the larger pattern: ED and CBI raids whenever political convenient, use of UAPA charges against innocent students, communally targeted bulldozing of properties, control over the media

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Why Agnipath is not the reform the armed forces need

Fri, Jun 17, 2022

PB Mehta writes: Reform of the armed forces should be governed by a sound sociological, professional, institutional and strategic logic. Agnipath fails the smell test on all four

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes | Nupur Sharma hate speech row: Beware of half victories

Wed, Jun 08, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: A short-term blow on behalf of civility could be weaponised to endanger free speech and communal harmony in the long run

Why today’s debates over Aurangzeb, Shivaji, Rana Pratap or Prithviraj Chauhan are not about good or bad history, but tussles over memory

Fri, Jun 03, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: It's not about rewriting Marxist or Nehruvian history but putting facts at the service of creating kinship and finding enemies.

The conviction of Yasin Malik

Fri, May 27, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: As is often the case in Kashmir, one act of closure may open up new and even more ominous questions.

What the two-front war in Ukraine means for the world

Fri, May 20, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: In the long run, something creative may emerge from this crisis as economies restructure. Under present conditions, the second-order effects of the war have magnified a great deal

Like Nero, we fiddle as the world burns

Wed, May 04, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Climate deniers are not the real challenge. Those who do not deny climate change are imprisoned by a sense of unreality.

With eyes wide open, we’re hurtling into an abyss

Tue, Apr 26, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: The new Hinduism is about widespread acceptance of vile prejudice, alignment of state with majoritarian power, contempt for rights, glorification of violence

Putin may lose, but Putinism will survive

Fri, Apr 15, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Putin may lose, but Putinism is ascendant as an ideology — now aligning itself with white supremacism, French chauvinism, Israeli right wing assertion, Ottoman dreams, Chinese aggression or Hindutva aggression.

Ukraine invasion has revealed a new world disorder

Thu, Mar 24, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: The self-serving stances of all the great powers make it more likely that the world will be marked by more miscalculations, conflict and hubris

What the March 2022 assembly election results reveal

Thu, Mar 17, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: The BJP has transformed the nature of politics in ways to which the Opposition has no answer.

The world must do more to put pressure on Russia

Sat, Feb 26, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: The brutal truth is that despite outrage in the West, the appetite for doing what it takes to put pressure on Putin is not yet in evidence.

Hijab debate is a pretext for institutionalising state cruelty

Wed, Feb 23, 2022

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Progressives in India have fallen into the trap of being seen to oppose or defend the hijab, where the truth is that it is presumptuous to do either

Lata Mangeshkar was India’s inner voice

Tue, Feb 08, 2022

She represented us collectively. She also represented each one of us in our singularity

Kumar Gandharva exemplifies the unity of form, meaning and being

Fri, Jan 14, 2022

🔴 Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: By the time he took his last breath, he had not only become one of the greatest musicians of all time, he had arguably become the highest point of Indian culture

A separate entrance test for DU won’t solve anything

Sat, Jan 08, 2022

🔴 Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: The pressure on Delhi University will be eased if our regional universities are vastly improved

Can 2022 be a year of cooperation?

Tue, Jan 04, 2022

Let us hope that the world can steer clear of the conflicts that the major crises of 2021 seem to have made inevitable

Is there really no alternative to BJP and Modi?

Thu, Dec 30, 2021

🔴 Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Amnesia about recent history, pessimism lie behind the persistent refrain, ‘There is no alternative’.

The limits of the Hindu vs Hindutvavadi debate

Thu, Dec 23, 2021

🔴 Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Don’t expect the metaphysical project of defining a true Hindu to bell the political cat of building a decent society

Repealing AFSPA will not weaken, only strengthen Constitution

Fri, Dec 10, 2021

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: It is necessary for restoring constitutional sanity, stopping the permanent othering of Nagaland.

Is crypto mania more a symptom than a cause?

Sun, Nov 28, 2021

🔴 Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: We must ask what makes it alluring in the first place, instead of rooting for its ban.

What the withdrawal of controversial farm laws means

Sun, Nov 21, 2021

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: It dents government’s image of total control, but whether it leads to a constructive dialogue or a sharpening of contradictions remains to be seen

We need greater global cooperation

Tue, Nov 09, 2021

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: In new era of great power rivalry, countries are choosing to preserve national supremacy over global problem-solving. This will have consequences.