Editorial Note, Sep-Oct, 2014

Each one in the series of annual lectures instituted in the memory of D.S. Borker is supposed to discuss the speaker’s vision of India in 2047. This accordingly is the theme of the lecture, published in the current number, by N. Ram who was the speaker for this year. The two crucial challenges before the nation, identified by Ram, are: the persistence of acute deprivation for large numbers of people; and the threat to our secular polity by the aggressive majoritarianism of the Hindu Right, which in turn both promotes and feeds on minority communalism. How the nation handles these challenges will determine our future as a nation. Ram firmly rejects interpretations of secularism in terms of ‘equal respect to all religions’ or ‘good feelings towards all religions’, and reiterates that the concept must mean equality-and-fairness for all as citizens, and the separation of religion from politics.