Editorial Note, May -June, 2024

This edition of Social Scientist carries the second part of Aditya Mukherjee’s Presidential Address to the Indian History Congress, in which he provides an assessment of the distance we have travelled from the India of Nehru’s dream. In that perception of India, democracy and civil liberties were a non-negotiable core. It was based on the idea that only a democratic structure that gave space to various linguistic, religious, cultural, political and socio-economic trends to express themselves could hold India together. This had implications for the development trajectory to be pursued.