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
August 10,2023 07:07:01 AM
No country in the world has industrialised merely by deregulation
Thu, Aug 10, 2023July 27,2023 07:07:09 AM
The crisis is the sign of the times — a future more authoritarian and in the grip of exclusionary nationalisms
Thu, Jul 27, 2023July 22,2023 06:43:57 AM
The video of the assault on women shakes us to the core. But our reactions -- and the PM's -- do not address the atrocity
Sat, Jul 22, 2023July 12,2023 18:37:47 PM
The voice of both the great and barbaric threat to freedom as well as of the void that freedom creates, Milan Kundera was a political novelist in the deepest sense of the term
Wed, Jul 12, 2023July 12,2023 07:00:35 AM
The only part on which the BJP has delivered is the institutionalisation of Hindutva. But it will, for the first time, have to project that in a context where there will be nothing else — no other economic narrative, no organisational distinctiveness, and no novel narrative
Mon, Jul 17, 2023June 29,2023 19:27:06 PM
It will be a tragedy if the project of justice becomes hostage to two forms of bad faith: Majoritarianism, and the fear of majoritarianism
Fri, Jun 30, 2023June 21,2023 07:10:49 AM
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Most striking thing about the current India-US moment is the sheer asymmetry of what the US is offering. It may not last
Thu, Jun 22, 2023June 08,2023 20:09:28 PM
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: All parties, singly, are considered partisan. What is needed is an all-party mediation to lift the state out of a fatal zero-sum identity politics
Fri, Jun 09, 2023May 20,2023 12:56:35 PM
By negating the court’s ruling to take over services, the government has intentionally created a full-blown constitutional crisis. The Supreme Court will be damned if it does (react) and damned if it does not.
Mon, May 22, 2023May 17,2023 07:30:01 AM
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: BJP is finding it hard to win bipolar contests. In that lies a window of opportunity for the Opposition
Wed, May 17, 2023April 21,2023 18:10:58 PM
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: The Opposition projecting political unity on the basis of social division is unlikely to be a winning formula in elections
Sat, Apr 22, 2023April 14,2023 16:45:48 PM
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: We live in an age when strongmen are elevated to iconic status, but it is harder for dissidents to become focal point for a discussion of freedom
Sun, Apr 16, 2023March 27,2023 19:31:57 PM
Amid fear and impunity, the threshold of over-reach by the political establishment seems to be shifting higher and higher
Sat, Apr 08, 2023March 10,2023 16:35:49 PM
Thirty years after the 73rd and 74th amendments, decentralisation of power and resources is more showy than real
Sat, Mar 11, 2023February 17,2023 18:00:52 PM
The war has tied the US hands even more in acting as a policeman of liberal values. It has given its friends and allies like India and Israel even more cover to renege on their democratic promise, without attracting any international attention
Sat, Feb 18, 2023February 10,2023 17:11:02 PM
A hearing that is meaningless, has no serious judicial basis, and whose outcome is foregone? Is this tangled web a product of carelessness or complicity?
Sat, Feb 11, 2023January 26,2023 06:50:06 AM
These are testing times. This year will be challenging for constitutional processes
Thu, Jan 26, 2023January 07,2023 14:00:41 PM
New guidelines for foreign campuses in India don’t herald a revolution. They’re an admission of failure
Mon, Jan 09, 2023January 07,2023 12:00:13 PM
Swami Vivekananda’s Vedantic Cosmopolitanism by Swami Medhananda is a marvel of philosophical brilliance and erudition while Ruth Hariss’s beautifully written Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda looks at his transformation into a new-age guru
Sun, Jan 08, 2023January 02,2023 16:04:29 PM
In her dissent, Justice Nagarathna asks the right question: What was the Board of the RBI doing in all this?
Wed, Feb 08, 2023December 31,2022 07:12:20 AM
If you were ever confused by the question, “What are India’s aspirations?” help is at hand. Think of India as a Vishwaguru. All your doubts will melt away.
Wed, Feb 08, 2023December 22,2022 16:24:31 PM
Bharat Jodo is an important gesture on politics of hate. But its own equivocation on what it is about suggests that it is not yet a politics of hope
Sat, Dec 24, 2022December 15,2022 18:04:17 PM
While there is a great effort to focus attention on the China challenge, there is also an attempt to disguise the gravity
Wed, Feb 08, 2023November 29,2022 18:00:33 PM
Protests in China are unlikely to lead to regime change, but it has dented the authority of the President.
Wed, Feb 08, 2023November 23,2022 18:00:08 PM
SC should address specific concerns about EC, not use ad hoc observations to undermine legitimacy of institution
Sat, Nov 26, 2022