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
More From Pratap Bhanu Mehta
P B Mehta writes: Can Indian capital step up when it is needed the most?Sign In to read
August 29,2025 06:12:12 AM
For decades, businesses blamed the state for stifling potential. Now they reveal their innate inability to invest, build, or imagine the future
Fri, Aug 29, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Alasdair MacIntyre and the oppressions and fictions of modernitySubscriber Only
August 18,2025 07:05:27 AM
His masterpiece, 'After Virtue', published in 1981, anticipates many of the pathologies of modern political life.
Mon, Aug 18, 2025
P B Mehta writes: Giving in to the American state is an affront to India’s dignitySubscriber Only
August 05,2025 07:23:13 AM
Our pro-America lobby is loudly proclaiming that this model is working. Let us put it as modestly as we can, the jury is out on that one. But in any case, it is not clear what the rest of the world gains
Tue, Aug 05, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: If Gaza’s corpses can vanish from our conscience, what else are we becoming blind to?Subscriber Only
July 24,2025 06:28:25 AM
The horror in Gaza is so palpable that explanation or contextualisation often feels obscene. These are now tools of evasion, not illumination. The evasions and silences are linked to the broader civic failures of democracy
Fri, Jul 25, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Hyper nationalism prevents our foreign policy from asking tough questionsSubscriber Only
July 17,2025 06:20:56 AM
India is rightly concerned, and is somewhat shocked, that it lost the diplomatic high ground after Operation Sindoor
Thu, Jul 17, 2025
P B Mehta writes: In Bihar, now, prove your identitySubscriber Only
July 08,2025 07:20:53 AM
EC exercise in Bihar is an illustration of bureaucratic insensitivity, state overreach. It will erode trust in institutions
Tue, Jul 08, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: On Emergency and nationalism, a debate that blinds us to the futureSubscriber Only
July 01,2025 06:14:32 AM
In an era of such planetary-scale economic, technological and moral change, it is galling that we still want to remain stuck in the Seventies
Tue, Jul 01, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta on conflicts across the world: Dangerous new thresholdsSubscriber Only
June 18,2025 07:05:39 AM
The impunity and nihilism of this moment are glaring. Amidst mass devastation and suffering, our moral faculties have been paralysed
Wed, Jun 18, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: What a free speech regime requiresSubscriber Only
June 13,2025 07:10:33 AM
Crisis of free speech is crisis of social mistrust. Each act of legal censorship is a vote of no confidence in our autonomous agency
Fri, Jun 13, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: SC order in Mahmudabad case casts a shadow on our rightsSubscriber Only
May 23,2025 06:51:58 AM
We are now in a constitutional regime in which even the Court’s philanthropic benevolence in granting bail lays the groundwork for further oppression.
Fri, May 23, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Dealing with Pakistan, weak or strongSubscriber Only
May 12,2025 07:20:22 AM
Immediate onus is on Pakistan to demonstrate commitment to pacification of terrorism. There is no avoiding political process in Subcontinent
Mon, May 12, 2025
The Pahalgam abyssSubscriber Only
April 24,2025 16:29:57 PM
Perpetrators of the terror strike will be brought to justice. But a sense of foreboding will remain
Fri, Apr 25, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: How technology affects balance of power — and the lesson for IndiaSubscriber Only
April 19,2025 07:05:12 AM
If you want to be a technology leader, you should focus less on getting dominance in specific sectors and more on broad-based policies that allow for the diffusion of General Purpose Technologies
Sat, Apr 19, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: India must stand up to Donald Trump, the bullySubscriber Only
April 05,2025 07:05:41 AM
Recent US moves are brutal power play. Delhi must work on an international coalition to resist his imperiousness
Sat, Apr 05, 2025
Arun Shourie’s book on Savarkar, A New Icon, is a biting indictment of the Hindutva leader but fails to diagnose what makes his ideology so pervasive in modern IndiaSubscriber Only
April 04,2025 18:51:12 PM
Shourie does what he has so often done in the past: read original sources deeply and thoroughly to make a compelling case for the prosecution. Savarkar does not escape the full force of Shourie’s forensic wrath. He uses Savarkar’s own words to indict the man
Sun, Aug 03, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Under Trump, America teeters on the edge of authoritarianismSubscriber Only
March 18,2025 07:42:21 AM
His playbook has an Orwellian penchant for the inversion of language and policy and rides on normalising fear and compliance
Tue, Mar 18, 2025
Centre, state, party: The many conundrums of federalismSubscriber Only
March 14,2025 06:56:07 AM
The question of the dominance of parties threatens to obscure issues of federalism, including on delimitation
Sat, Mar 15, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: After Ukraine, imperialism is now the normSubscriber Only
March 05,2025 06:58:33 AM
The fact that the invasion of Ukraine happened at all was a profound failure, not of Ukraine as Trump suggests, but of the international community, which failed to uphold its security guarantees to a country that had willingly given up its nuclear arsenal.
Wed, Mar 05, 2025
Delhi’s contradictions took down Dikshit and Kejriwal. They will continue to haunt BJPSubscriber Only
February 20,2025 06:54:58 AM
Perhaps the starting point for thinking about governance is to not begin with a list of schemes, but the contradictions that Delhi must manage.
Wed, Feb 26, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Trump wants to show the world who is bossSubscriber Only
February 05,2025 07:11:37 AM
This is not an era of transactionalism. It is the reinventing of American supremacy by weaponising the discontent with the current order
Wed, Feb 05, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: India’s delusion of relevanceSubscriber Only
February 01,2025 06:56:59 AM
Absolute numbers, framed by a propaganda machine, do not present an accurate picture of India's place in the world
Sat, Feb 01, 2025
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: India’s growth slowdown is a signal of declining confidence in governmentSubscriber Only
January 14,2025 07:04:33 AM
Mindless capital expenditure, schemes that fail to address systemic weaknesses, a lack of real reforms – investors may not say it openly out of fear or politeness, but privately, there is a crisis of faith in the state
Tue, Jan 14, 2025
PB Mehta writes: Five vibes — in politics, economics and creativity — that will shape 2025Subscriber Only
January 01,2025 06:50:53 AM
These are not predictions; it would be presumptuous to claim omniscience or even foresight. But here are five trends more in the realm of how the world might feel, rather than a prediction of actual events.
Wed, Jan 01, 2025
Manmohan Singh was devoured by populist furies. History is a mean avengerSubscriber Only
December 27,2024 12:16:43 PM
Manmohan Singh secured developmental space for India and positioned India brilliantly. It is capital that we are still living off.
Sun, Dec 29, 2024
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: In today’s India, can the Constitution protect individual dignity?Subscriber Only
December 18,2024 07:00:11 AM
We have a politics that has created the sense of a permanent ascriptive majority and minority, with the latter demanding that the Constitution represent it as a social force. Can we survive this contradiction and keep some semblance of the Constitution?
Wed, Dec 18, 2024a better experience