New Delhi: Leading political philosopher Professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta has a litmus test to measure India’s progress in 2047—one that cuts through economic statistics and development jargon to ask deeper questions about dignity and freedom.
“The economic test would be whether domestic workers become economically unaffordable and extinct as a species in India,” said Mehta. The civic test, he added, is “whether identities matter because they are freely chosen, not imposed as compulsory labels from birth. If India passes these two tests, I would be confident our society will be secure in 2047”
Since 1999, the DS Borker Memorial Lecture Series has honoured the legacy of the principled civil servant committed to justice, integrity, and democratic ideals. It has featured some of India’s most influential thinkers, offering sharp reflections on the nation’s democratic journey and the challenges that lie ahead.
Held each year around 24 August at the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi, the lecture provides a platform for bold, forward-looking reflections grounded in secular and constitutional values.
The 2025 lecture—part of the civil society initiative titled My Vision of India: 2047—featured Mehta, who offered a sobering yet hopeful vision for India as it approaches its centenary of Independence. Journalist Chitrangada Choudhury introduced the session, with senior editor Harish Khare serving as Chair. The lecture drew an audience of around 100 people. Among them were students, retired academics, public intellectuals, and long-time followers of the lecture series.
Mehta emphasised that the foundation of a truly democratic India lies not in ideology but in moral individualism—the defence of individual dignity and the right to self-development, free from inherited identities. He warned against the growing entrenchment of caste, religion, and community as rigid legal and social categories that limit freedom.
“The real problem is the tyranny of compulsory identities—like caste and religion—that are imposed from birth. This tyranny isn’t about the importance of identity itself, but about identities being legislated and enforced by law, as we’re doing increasingly with caste, creating a legal rule of caste,” said Mehta.
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Promise of 2047
As India looks toward 2047—the centenary of its Independence—the question looming over its democratic journey is not merely one of economic or technological advancement. For Mehta, the deeper reckoning lies in the foundational ideas that have come to define—and distort—India’s public life: Secularism, progressivism, and identity.
While acknowledging the need for shared, secular public reason in a democracy, he points to the historical and conceptual ambiguity of the very term. ‘Secular’, he argued, is not a self-evident category—it’s a construct embedded in the evolution of sovereign power.
The dominant Indian version of secularism, he said, doesn’t centre the individual—it centres communities, often treating India as a ‘federation of communities’ engaged in negotiated coexistence.
“That’s a version of secularism I’m deeply uncomfortable with. I want India to be a zone of individual freedom, not a federation of communities. There will be diversity. Diversity is never a freestanding value. But the genuine diversity will be one that comes out of the free choices of individuals, not negotiated settlements between communities,” said Mehta.
For Mehta, liberty, equality, and fraternity offer a stronger foundation for Indian democracy than a diluted notion of secularism. These ideals, he said, place individual dignity at the core of a true liberal order. His critique extended to progressivism as well—often invoked in the name of justice, but, he warned, frequently reduced to moral complacency that dismisses all tradition as regressive and treats every flaw as grounds for dismantling institutions.
What worries him most is progressivism’s “will to simplicity”—a tendency to approach complex social realities with a single lens or principle, and to believe that societies can be engineered rather than grown.
“Progressivism often suffers from a lack of social self-knowledge, hastily judging and dismantling established institutions simply because they are imperfect, without acknowledging their underlying functions,” he said.
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Civilisational unity and wisdom
Partition, like colonialism, deeply wounded the Indian subcontinent. Though separate nations now exist, Mehta said, this division has left the region vulnerable to external interference and internal instability. The anti-imperial project and political renewal depend on reimagining South Asia as a unified moral and strategic space—rooted in individual freedom rather than communal divisions or borders drawn during Partition.
Beyond political and economic damage, colonialism caused an intellectual and spiritual rupture, shattering India’s civilisational self-understanding. “The terms in which a society understood itself, its mode of social self-knowledge, were entirely delegitimised.” While caste critiques were needed, colonialism left Indian civilisation in “intellectual ruin”. Thinkers like Kabir are now seen more as social theorists than sources of true wisdom.
Post-Independence, India uniquely viewed its civilisation through the lens of power structures. “The question of civilisation,” Mehta said, “was reduced to what structures of power these texts encode.” While necessary to critique oppression, this approach led to discarding the possibility of transcendence itself. Spirituality, often dismissed as narcissism or politically suspect, faces deep suspicion in democratic discourse, where civic engagement is seen as its antidote.
Yet, Mehta identified Hindutva as the greatest threat—a “single biggest assault on civilisation.” It shares the colonial premise that all texts are about power, hollowing out their spiritual essence.
Looking to 2047, Mehta stressed that India’s challenge is civilisational, not merely economic or geopolitical. Healing a fractured society requires reclaiming India’s inner resources and imagining South Asia as a unified moral and strategic space. Despite challenges, India’s cultural resilience—from classical music to finding the sacred in everyday life—offers hope. This resilience, he said, must inspire a new spirituality grounded not in dogma or cults but in rigorous, ego-free inquiry.
“The three magical words of this civilisation—Sat Chit Anand. Sat, reality beyond truth; Chit, consciousness at the heart of philosophical inquiry; Anand, the availability of bliss. If Sat Chit Anand seems closer in 2047, we will have done our job,” said Mehta.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)