Why public intellectuals matter in contemporary India

The term “public intellectual” has an interesting origin. As Romila Thapar informs us, it was used in conjunction with Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain in the French army who was believed to have leaked secrets to the German army. He was later found to have done no such thing and was found not guilty. Many artists, teachers, poets and writers rallied to his support when he faced accusations of divulging secrets. These people came to be called public intellectuals.

A public intellectual is basically a person who deals with current issues and takes a stand in support of what they believe to be true and right. It needs to ask questions about the social, political and economic issues of today using sound arguments to make societies better places to live. A public intellectual is someone who seeks to constantly affirm the basic principles of social justice, human dignity and brotherhood.

Demanding authoritarian tendencies

The role of the public intellectual has perhaps never been more critical and important than it is in India today. The increasing enforcement of authoritarian tendencies, leading to the systematic and gradual weakening of public institutions, the destruction of democratic practices, the silencing and indeed criminalization of dissent, the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters based on a “logical contradiction” and the bulldozing of houses (especially those belonging to Muslims), as well as the lynching of people sleeping on the ground, jihad is committing things on refrigerators that everyone is painfully aware of. If public intellectuals don’t speak up and raise their voices now, when they would do so is hard to guess. It is their moral and ethical responsibility to speak up and stand up for what is right. Silence is not a virtue these days. On the contrary, it can be dangerous.

Perhaps it would be appropriate to mention here what Antonio Gramsci, the famous Italian intellectual, wrote: “I hate the indifferent also because I am annoyed by their whining as eternal innocents. I ask each one of them how they fulfill the role that life has assigned to them and daily store what they have done and especially what they have not done. And I feel that I can be adamant and do not have to waste my pity or share my tears with them… I live, I am a partisan. I hate those who are indifferent’. He tried to say that the public intellectuals should reflect and formulate their position on the pressing issues of the day. It is not that India has not produced great intellectuals from the ancient India to BR Ambedkar. intellectuals who challenged dominant and hegemonic paradigms during their time.

Silence in academia and science

But what one finds today is a general silence from those who have the intellectual and critical skills to be effective public intellectuals. In this regard, one could refer to university teachers, poets, writers, artists and others.

A few words about university teachers in particular would be appropriate. It is true that one need not be a university teacher to be a public intellectual, but a university teacher who is supposed to have a developed critical imagination and the necessary conceptual equipment is eminently suited to be an effective public intellectual. A university teacher is expected to critically discuss and formulate positions on current issues, however uncomfortable they may be to the powers that be. But what can be found is the mysterious silence of these people on issues that seriously threaten our constitutional and democratic framework. Silence is almost normalized among the university academy. If they didn’t write and speak about issues affecting especially the marginalized and the weak in society, who would?

One can also refer to prominent scientists who could make a significant contribution to discussions in society in an impartial and objective way. Unfortunately, they are observed to confine themselves to their narrow specialized fields, rendering them disembodied and decontextualized individuals. There is a certain reluctance on their part to relate to surrounding social interests.

Several examples could be taken to show how public intellectuals can contribute, if they wish, to the enrichment of contemporary debates. Take the example of nationalism. The way it is currently constructed, it is not (with a few honorable exceptions) seriously questioned. There is no critical interrogation of the way Hinduism is weaponized in terms of Hindutva. Also, attempts to transform our inclusive, democratic and civic nationalism (based on the constitutional principles of equality, liberty, justice and fraternity) into an exclusive, authoritarian and ethnic (Hindurashtra) nationalism is something that must be high on the agenda of public intellectuals. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

They also need to convince people that the European model of destructive, jingoistic and exclusive nationalism is not the right way to strengthen Indian nationalism, which has a glorious history of fighting against British colonialism on democratic, secular and egalitarian grounds.

Challenging false history

Another example would be that the line between myth and history is constantly blurring, but professional historians (again with very few exceptions) have preferred to remain silent. Academic historians are clearly not doing their job of challenging fake history (WhatsApp history) effectively. Or take the case of the increasing communalization of public consciousness, which is essentially a tool used to divert people’s attention from problems such as unemployment, youth unrest, unsatisfactory state of public education, rising prices, agrarian crisis, etc.

There was a time when eminent scientists were invited to debates on television channels, where they could enlighten us on many important aspects of our history, culture and society. One cannot find such debates today. This is because either these scholars are no longer invited to debates of this kind, or they have refused to be part of debates that are now known for their noise rather than meaningful and substantive content. In any case, you can’t really expect much from electronic media these days, because it has allowed itself to be commodified to an unprecedented extent.

What is totally discouraged nowadays is an inquiring mind. When questions are raised about the state of our polity, education, economy and society in general, efforts are made to delegitimize them as anti-national and seditious, and even threats of indiscriminate imprisonment. The criminalization of dissent has become normalized. But still, if the public intellectuals do not speak up and make their presence felt now, it will indeed be a very sad state of affairs in the country. It is true that even their most effective interventions may not lead to the elimination of oppressive structures, but at least in the long run they help raise people’s critical awareness of them.

It is in this context that the remarkable resilience shown by young protesters in the recent Jantar Mantar agitation must be appreciated as they took their struggle to what they see as its logical conclusion – the resignation of the Education Minister. One lesson to be learned from the largely peaceful agitation led by the Janta Cockroach Party (CJP) is that, contrary to popular belief, the country’s youth are not depoliticized and apathetic.

The large participation of young people, many of whom may have had nothing to do with the NEET exam, in the protest is a symbol of their political empathy. They wanted to show their solidarity, which they did. With repeated shortcomings in the conduct of examinations at the national level, they have raised the critical question of accountability, a fundamental normative feature of any democratic governance, and pursued it with all their might at their behest.

We have always underestimated the political awareness of the country’s youth and we must apologize to them for that. Every act of resistance is a political act. Perhaps they began to play the role of public intellectual.

(DV Kumar is retired Professor, Department of Sociology, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong)

Published – 16 Sep 2026 08:00 IST