Viksit Bharat need not be constrained by political or electoral optics. It could be an ideal template whose contours can be reflected upon as India inches towards the hundredth year of its existence as a sovereign entity. Some elements that ought to be integral to this model were underlined by Justice Ujjal Bhuyan recently during the first national conference of the Bar Association of the Supreme Court. He mentioned the fault lines arising on account of caste divisions; chasms that he said must be obliterated. Egality as well as the autonomy of the court are important ingredients in Justice Bhuyan’s perspective on a developed nation. But it is liberty that lies at the heart of the values that the learned judge wanted to be espoused in the developed India of the future. Yet, the concern raised by Mr Bhuyan in this context has contemporary relevance. He said that mindless incarceration under draconian laws, such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, cannot have a place in a viksit India. The data presented by the judge was illuminating. Between 2019 and 2023, thousands had been arrested under this legal instrument even though the rate of conviction has hovered around 5%. This, Mr Bhuyan deduced correctly, was indicative of a law that was being weaponised on the basis of premature arrests and flimsy evidence. The result is not just infringements on the liberties and the rights of the incarcerated. Efforts to prolong incarcerations under such legal instruments not only amplify the burden of pendency on courts but also sound the proverbial death knell for debate and dissent in a democracy. Justice Bhuyan’s emphasis on the need to decriminalise dissent is both timely and of critical importance. The State’s depredations on dissenting voices in recent years have been marked: data from the Union home ministry suggest that over 10,000 arrests took place between 2019 and 2023. The chilling impact of such a chokehold on the free exchange of critical or dissenting opinion — the kernel in the fruit called democracy — cannot be understated.

Debate and dissent are often viewed through the prism of polemics. What gets undermined as a result is the role of these elements in the cementing of respect for differences and contrarian points of view. India’s diversity — social and intellectual — cannot be conceived sans a robust framework of dissent and a culture of argumentation. India of the present and of the future cannot afford to forget this.