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.
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More From Pratap Bhanu Mehta
We need temporary reconciliation, a national action plan. PM must take lead
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: If our politics continues as usual over the next few months, the devastation to our lives will be immeasurable.
Fri, May 07, 2021
The ruthless politics of the Centre’s vaccine strategy
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Our vaccine policy reflects an ad hoc social Darwinism, where the strong do what they can and the weak suffer because they must
Wed, Apr 28, 2021
Weaponising faith: The Gyanvapi Mosque-Kashi Vishwanath dispute
The Gyanvapi order combined with the Supreme Court’s willingness to entertain a plea challenging the Places of Worship Act could open another communal front.
Tue, Apr 13, 2021
On Myanmar, India has to decide whether it is on the side of the future
By sidelining even the most basic humanitarian impulses in its response to Myanmar crisis, India will neither realise its ideals nor its strategic objectives.
Wed, Mar 31, 2021
This election is a reality check for Bengal
How West Bengal's revolutionary and progressive self-images hid the '4 Cs' of its politics — caste, communalism, corruption and coercion.
Fri, Mar 12, 2021
The Haryana bill is constitutionally indefensible, politically cynical
Domicile-based preferential policies indict the economy as a whole, suggesting a pessimism about both education and job creation
Fri, Mar 05, 2021
India, Pak, China must build on de-escalation, resist hubris that exults in unilateral triumphalism
If all three powers, China, Pakistan and India, can draw the appropriate lessons in humility, there is hope for regional politics to turn over a new leaf
Tue, Mar 02, 2021
Big tech regulation can solve real problems, or only increase state control
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 20, 2021
A letter to the misunderstood men and women who are creating New India through Unity in Purity
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, Feb 06, 2021
The real darkness on horizon is the turn Indian democracy is taking
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.
Sat, Jan 30, 2021
A new conversation takes place on the Constitution. Rumbling of tractors announces a new spectacle
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?”
Tue, Jan 26, 2021
Supreme Court’s order putting on hold the farm bills is terrible constitutional precedent, bereft of judgment
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.
Mon, Jan 18, 2021
US might recoil from Capitol siege. But its democracy will remain riven by internal conflicts
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 08, 2021
We need a new language to speak of the people, avoid the old impasse
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.
Fri, Jan 01, 2021
SC verdict exposes fallacy of using general category as reservation for upper castes
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).
Sat, Dec 26, 2020
Our misshapen federalism is not about Centre vs states, but co-produced by political culture in both
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.
Thu, Dec 10, 2020
What makes A Promised Land by Barack Obama one of the best American presidential memoirs
Obama’s vivid, novelistic writing brings to life his fairytale political career from state legislator to America’s first Black president.
Sun, Nov 29, 2020
The government may ride out the farmers’ protests. But simmering discontent will remain
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 28, 2020
Why Arun Shourie concludes that the ultimate preparation for death is simply love
The former Union minister and veteran journalist’s latest book, ‘Preparing for Death’, is both a contemplation of and an anthology on death
Sat, Nov 21, 2020
PB Mehta writes: SC was never perfect, but the signs are that it is slipping into judicial barbarism
This phenomenon is not just a matter of individual judges or individual cases. It is now a systematic phenomenon with deep institutional roots.
Wed, Nov 18, 2020
America is caught between an anaemic liberalism and a militant Republican Party
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, Nov 07, 2020
In defence of liberty: It is time to stand up for individual freedoms, against all challengers
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.
Sat, Oct 31, 2020
Opposition must think harder about political economy of protest to counter new political economy of reform
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.
Fri, Oct 23, 2020
Nobel to Gluck privileges a literature whose job is to resist redemption or enchantment
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.
Sat, Oct 10, 2020
PB Mehta writes: Delhi riots chargesheet invents conspiracy and enemy, as per script
Those who really incite roam free. But all of us who saw the Constitution as a site of hope are potential terrorists now.
Fri, Sep 25, 2020