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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. Before he started engaging with contemporary affairs, he taught political theory at Harvard, and briefly at JNU. He has written 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. Follow @pbmehta
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More From Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Gen Z’s parents must answer for their politics, crisis it createdSubscriber Only
August 05,2026 15:26:36 PM
These protests are radical in different ways. The first way is more psychological: It is a refusal to accept fear as a social norm. Some of that fear has been induced by the exacerbating authoritarianism of the Modi government. But behind it was a deeper social norm internalised in the generation of the students' parents. This was the idea of survival or flourishing required accommodation
Tue, Aug 11, 2026
P B Mehta writes: ‘Cockroaches’ have shown us what it means to be courageous citizens — not subjectsSubscriber Only
July 26,2026 12:20:48 PM
The farmers’ agitation had made the government withdraw legislation. But this is the first time that the government has acknowledged the need for taking responsibility and being held accountable
Mon, Jul 27, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes | Wars, pollution, exam scandals – no one did it, it happensSubscriber Only
July 16,2026 18:57:27 PM
These days, it has become the norm for government ministers, civil servants, or recently retired decision-makers to write about their departments with impressive expertise. They will outline lofty goals, even share citizens' concerns. But the one thing missing in all that writing is the fixing of accountability
Fri, Jul 17, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: When corruption does not make a political noiseSubscriber Only
July 09,2026 06:50:11 AM
Today, the fear is not simply that political power is being used to extract rents, but that it is being used to create and protect quasi-monopolies, selectively rewarding favoured firms while disadvantaging rivals
Thu, Jul 09, 2026
American Declaration will remain universal, revolutionary. America may notSubscriber Only
July 04,2026 06:45:59 AM
It is an astounding fact that America has never known powerlessness. This is what underwrites its exceptionalism from all opinions of mankind in international law.
Fri, Jul 03, 2026
How Umar Khalid’s new book rewrites the history of Adivasi politics and agencySubscriber Only
June 27,2026 13:16:38 PM
Fractured Communities by Umar Khalid offers a richly textured, astute history of Adivasis through the struggles of the Ho community of Jharkhand’s Singhbhum region.
Tue, Jul 07, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: On US-Iran ceasefire, the mediation question is the wrong oneSubscriber Only
June 16,2026 17:35:54 PM
The sense of being a supplicant in the face of the US, and too cowardly to name any crime in the international order, is palpably visible for the world to see. The problem is that we are seen as incapable of defending any principle whatsoever
Tue, Jun 16, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Dear students struggling with exam chaos and scamsSubscriber Only
June 03,2026 17:25:55 PM
I will let you in on a secret. The whole purpose of India’s exam industry, with a few minor exceptions, is no longer to expand opportunity or prepare the country for global competition. Our education ministers, at both the Centre and the states, have been among the greatest gifts we could have given to China and our competitors
Fri, Jun 05, 2026
Today, India and US interests are not easily aligned. Let’s confront thisSubscriber Only
May 23,2026 06:15:02 AM
We have to return to thinking that what is good for the world will, in the long run, be good for us as well. This requires recognising the US, in the current form, for what it is — an imperial power unleashing a new and dangerous nihilism in the world order
Sat, May 23, 2026
P B Mehta writes: Three reasons Modi’s patriotic appeal to Indians is not the answer to the Iran war crisisSubscriber Only
May 14,2026 06:20:23 AM
Just like we were underestimating the vulnerability of our economy, we may also be underestimating the social churn about to follow. The age of uncertainty will require sophisticated statecraft
Thu, May 14, 2026
P B Mehta writes: BJP’s triumph is a testament to its political energy, but it carries a shadow for Indian democracySubscriber Only
May 04,2026 17:36:42 PM
Congress might exult in the fact that all its INDIA bloc rivals have fallen away. But Congress is nowhere near even putting up a minimal resistance and is no match for the BJP’s ruthlessness
Tue, May 05, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Why AAP’s breakup matters and can an Opposition-free India be far behind?Subscriber Only
April 29,2026 06:20:37 AM
Admittedly, not all of the BJP’s strategies are entirely unprecedented. But the ruthlessness, scale, coordination and ferocity with which they are deployed is unprecedented
Wed, Apr 29, 2026
A political setback for the government, a democratic opening for the oppositionSubscriber Only
April 17,2026 21:45:07 PM
This defeat allows a more sober reconsideration of important institutional and constitutional questions
Sat, Apr 18, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: A modest plea for constitutional moralitySubscriber Only
April 11,2026 06:45:19 AM
In a case like Sabarimala, it invites us to ask: How are liberty and equality to be reconciled with the autonomy of institutions? When does a practice so burden the standing of members that their civic equality is compromised? These are difficult questions, but they are the right questions
Sat, Apr 11, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Democracy has already lost the warSubscriber Only
April 01,2026 06:00:45 AM
Even those fully aware of the impending catastrophe feel utterly disarmed and disempowered, as though democracy itself has been evacuated as a site for reflection on war
Tue, Mar 31, 2026
Clifton Crais exposes the Dark Origins of Modernity — Guns, Empire and the ‘Mortecene’Subscriber Only
March 14,2026 10:02:36 AM
In The Killing Age, Clifton Crais says modernity is a machine for systematic killing
Fri, Mar 13, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Revisiting ‘The Wealth of Nations’ and its abiding suspicion of concentrated powerSubscriber Only
March 09,2026 07:00:22 AM
Smith’s critique of mercantilism was not a simple brief for non-intervention; it was a diagnosis of how states are captured by vested interests
Tue, Mar 10, 2026
P B Mehta writes: An aimless war is waged as spectacle. We have all devised new strategies of moral evasionSubscriber Only
March 07,2026 06:58:46 AM
The real obscenity of this moment is not simply the war itself; it is the normalisation of a world in which war has become performance. But if the great powers have chosen nihilism, the rest of the world still has a choice
Sat, Mar 07, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: From a book on authoritarianism, lessons on ‘realism’ for IndiaSubscriber Only
February 28,2026 06:18:35 AM
The Captive Mind, Czesław Miłosz’s searing anatomy of authoritarianism, highlights the dangers of self-deception in the name of 'realism'
Sat, Feb 28, 2026
P B Mehta writes: As we contemplate possibilities of AI, it is wreaking enduring transformations in state-capital relationsSubscriber Only
February 21,2026 07:05:37 AM
The firms leading this transformation — Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google — no longer resemble ‘light’ digital platforms. They look more like early 20th-century infrastructure monopolies
Sat, Feb 21, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: India-US deal is one-sided. It creates vulnerabilitiesSubscriber Only
February 10,2026 07:09:12 AM
Trade is never just about trade. India’s strategic abdications are already visible. India’s position on the Ukraine war was a classic case of evasion. But being compelled under duress to do what one might have chosen on principle, namely, to stop purchases of Russian oil, is something else altogether
Wed, Feb 11, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Epstein Files aren’t an ‘island story’. They are about the nature of collective powerSubscriber Only
February 03,2026 08:12:02 AM
The files provide a sobering X-ray of some of America’s elites: Immature, full of impunity, corrupt, venal, venial, and venereal all at once. They also provide a sobering view of global politics: There are no grand purposes, not even a political economy
Mon, Feb 09, 2026
Is MAGA an ideology or a political style? What Laura Field’s Furious Minds revealsSubscriber Only
January 31,2026 16:00:06 PM
Laura Field’s Furious Minds is a deeply brilliant, important, but ultimately disturbing account of a set of ideas that may place not only American democracy, but the wider world, at risk
Fri, Feb 13, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Meha writes: The gift to India that was Mark TullySubscriber Only
January 25,2026 19:48:34 PM
Sir Mark was unique in the annals of journalism not merely because he reported from India for decades with genteel insight, understated eloquence, moral toughness, wry humour, and as much objectivity as any journalist can humanly muster. He was unique because, on so many occasions, his voice constituted the only first draft of history available at the moment
Mon, Jan 26, 2026
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Trump is succeeding because leaders across the world want to be little TrumpsSubscriber Only
January 23,2026 07:20:23 AM
The world had become too psychologically dependent on the United States. Trump can act as a patriarch because we have put the US in that position. Much of the world, even in the face of Trump’s perfidy, is behaving like errant children, seeking their father’s good graces
Tue, Feb 03, 2026
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