On August 15, 2020, India celebrated its 73rd birthday. To reflect on the state of Indian democracy and to kick off the podcast’s fourth season, Pratap Bhanu Mehta joins Milan for a wide-ranging conversation on India’s past, present, and future.

Pratap is a professor of political science at Ashoka University and contributing editor and columnist at the Indian Express. He is a noted author, scholar, and commentator, not to mention arguably India’s finest public intellectual.

Pratap and Milan discuss what the COVID crisis says about Indian democracy, the future of secularism in India, the popular yearning for strongman rule, and the maladies plaguing India’s rule of law institutions.