On the eve of Republic Day, it is worth remembering that our founding heroes were complex, complicated creatures, more human and less divine than the flawless beings we have since wished them into. The older ones among us will remember being told first-hand stories about these brilliant, argumentative, stubborn, even flawed, yet deeply principled people, stories that did not smooth over their contradictions but lived comfortably with them. The younger ones, especially those born in the twenty-first century, may find it harder to square this circle, having grown up on sanitised textbook (if they are lucky) or WhatsApp (if they are not) portraits and compressed mythologies.
Subhas Chandra Bose admired aspects of European fascist regimes, yet thought Gandhi politically conservative, indeed too right-wing, to the point of paralysis, and held figures like Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in open contempt. Jawaharlal Nehru aligned himself intellectually and emotionally with socialists across the world, yet sided with the British Empire in the Second World War, insisting that while India had been dragged into a war not of its choosing, an independent India would, if given the choice, have stood with the Allies as a free and self-respecting nation on what he believed was the right side of history. These disagreements were not minor footnotes. They were fundamental, ideological, and often fierce.
And yet, these men were also capable of deep personal loyalty across those divides. Bose stood by Kamala Nehru during her final days while Jawaharlal was imprisoned. Nehru, later and without announcement or performance, ensured that Bose’s family was supported after his death. Disagreement did not erase affection. Ideological distance did not cancel moral responsibility. They argued because they cared, and they cared because they were bound by a shared project larger than ego, party, or personal victory. They understood the difference between an opponent and enemy.
This history sits uneasily with us today because political opposition has come to mean sworn enmity, compromise is framed as surrender, and dialogue itself is treated as hypocrisy. We live in a time where certainty is prized over curiosity, where listening is mistaken for weakness, and where moral purity is to be signalled and performed rather than examined and introspected on with a critical eye. Remembering the founding generation in all its inconsistency is unsettling precisely because it exposes how brittle our present politics has become. They trusted the Republic enough to disagree within it, and respected each other enough to remain human across those disagreements.
It is from this recognition that I want to announce the start of something I am calling Project Republic.
This is not a dialogue series. It is not a debate. It is not an exercise in persuasion, performance, or intellectual dominance. It is, very deliberately, an exercise in listening.
The idea is not to change minds, least of all my own in some dramatic moment of ideological conversion. The idea is first to understand and to see the world as it actually is, rather than as I believe it to be or ought to be. To encounter reality through other people’s eyes, not in order to adopt their conclusions, but to understand how those conclusions emerge, why they feel coherent, and why they appear morally compelling to those who hold them.
The premise is simple and, in the present climate, almost subversive. I will sit with thinking, intelligent, well-educated, well-read, articulate people from across the ideological spectrum and listen to them. I will ask the occasional clarifying question. I will not argue back. I will not attempt to dismantle their positions in real time. I will not rebut, correct, or rescue the conversation into familiar moral territory. I will listen, attentively and in good faith, to how they see the world.
The first person I have approached is my cousin. She is one of the sharpest minds I know. An economist with a PhD, having studied, lived, and worked in the USA and India. A driven social worker who goes against ritualism, illiteracy, and misogyny in places most of us will think twice before having a drink of water. A director on the board of a prestigious bank. A voracious reader (in Marathi, Hindi, and English) and formidable debater. A proud Hindu and Hindutvawadi, having a family legacy of staying true to the right-wing ideology even through the late 1970s and 1980s. A hard conservative right-winger. An intellectual. A feminist. And, stated plainly, a staunch patriot and an Indian who means that word without irony or embarrassment. We disagree on many things, sometimes profoundly. That is precisely why she is the first. I asked her for this, and she has agreed. In fact, I have asked her to bring more people with her so the session is deeper and more meaningful, apart from being complete in some respect (for she does also come from privilege, and that means her perspective is only one of many, though as a privileged high caste, highly educated, and well-respected woman, this perspective influences the likes, dislikes, attitudes, mores, and perspectives of a disproportionately large number of people less privileged than her).
I will sit with her and listen. I want to understand her perspective, her view of the world, her objectives and her methods. I want to hear how she thinks about this country and this civilisation, about culture and art, history and science, economics, world order, wars, geopolitics, education, governance, the military, religion, caste, and power. Not to rebut her answers, not to trap her in contradictions, but to see the internal logic of a worldview that is not mine.
I do not know whether I will write about these conversations. I may. I may not. That is not the point. The act itself matters more than its documentation. This will not be a single session, nor will it be limited to her alone. I intend to repeat this process with others like and adjacent to her, and with those removed from her privilege and lived experience but similar in ideology and instinct.
And then I will repeat it again. With extreme left-wingers. With Ambedkarites. With libertarians. With Islamists. With the greens. With Communists. With Naxalites. With Gandhians. Even with those who would comfortably describe themselves as fascists. Not because I believe they are right, or equally right, or secretly right. But because I believe that all of us, without exception, are blind to varying degrees, each touching a different part of the elephant and concluding that we understand the whole.
This is not an exercise in relativism. It is an exercise in humility. The recognition that certainty about the world often precedes understanding of it, and that outrage is frequently a substitute for the harder work of attention. Everyone who wishes to change the world believes, sincerely and without exception, that they are doing so for the better. The danger lies not in that belief, but in our refusal to understand how it is formed, what it rests on, and what it is prepared to sacrifice.
One final clarification, especially for those instinctively searching for outcomes, metrics, or closure.
This is an open-ended exercise. There are no specific goals, no targets, no timelines, no schedules, no finish-by dates, and no deliverables. In fact, there is nothing to ‘finish’, or indeed to ‘deliver’. There is no promise of synthesis, no guarantee of resolution, and no obligation to arrive at balance or consensus. Despite its name, this is less a ‘project’ in the managerial sense and far more an adventure in the older, riskier meaning of the word where one goes forth into worlds one has not been to, and tries to emerge a changed person. Like Star Trek. But inside my mind.
My only commitment is to remain present, attentive, and intellectually honest while moving through unfamiliar moral and ideological terrain. If something emerges from this that is worth writing, I will write it. If not, nothing. Not every journey needs a destination to justify the act of setting out.
Wish me luck.
P.S.: Don’t ask to be part of the conversations just yet. This is a personal journey. You can undertake yours independently. Also, yes, books are part of it. Just that I have read much and while no amount of reading is enough, it cannot supplant real conversations with real humans, only supplement them. So, hopefully that answers any questions you may have.
