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Between Hope and Despair: 100 Ethical Reflections on Contemporary India
India's collective ethical identity is under duress. We don't seem to currently agree on what our collective good is. Some groups believe that India is finally rediscovering its Hindu identity and becoming a great nation-state. For others, this change has brought us on the verge of losing our civilisational character of being inclusive but not any less Hindu or Indian.
Rajeev Bhargava believes that the legitimate concerns of all those disenchanted with the idea of an inclusive, pluralist India can actually be addressed within the basic framework of India's constitutional democracy. Through these short, elegant and lucid reflections, he takes the readers back to the founding narrative of the republic, suggesting that if we get the fundamentals of our original ethical vision right, then, we might yet save our country from further polarisation and may even heal some of its divisions.
Rajeev Bhargava believes that the legitimate concerns of all those disenchanted with the idea of an inclusive, pluralist India can actually be addressed within the basic framework of India's constitutional democracy. Through these short, elegant and lucid reflections, he takes the readers back to the founding narrative of the republic, suggesting that if we get the fundamentals of our original ethical vision right, then, we might yet save our country from further polarisation and may even heal some of its divisions.
- GenresIndia
470 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 28, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 20, 2025
Rajeev Bhargava’s Between Hope and Despair is a deeply important book for our times, a reminder of what shapes the moral and political core of India. Its strength lies in revisiting the Gandhian ethic—not as nostalgia, but as living, perennial ideas that continue to provide guidance in moments of deep fracture.
The book interrogates India’s secularism, democracy, and plural traditions with striking clarity. As Bhargava points out, secularism in India was never meant to be anti-religious. Instead, it was about critical respect for all religions, balancing recognition with critique. Gandhi understood this instinctively. He saw religions as the leaves of one tree—different in form, but nourished by the same trunk. In an age when Gandhi is slandered or dismissed, Bhargava shows us why his thought remains bulletproof: it was never about abstract ideals, but about lived moral agency.
Several highlights stood out for me. The idea that secularism is needed not only to protect minorities, but also Hindus from their own caste and gender orthodoxies, feels especially urgent. Bhargava also reclaims rituals, language, and dissent as vital components of human life—reminding us that we are not machines, but expressive beings who seek meaning in shared symbols and critical reflection. And his notion of “deep sociability,” that intrinsic desire humans have to connect even with those we disagree with, is one of the most hopeful insights I’ve read in a long time.
What struck me most, however, was how Gandhi’s everyday secularism comes alive in these pages. It is not about opportunistic “party secularism” or mechanical separation of state and religion. It is about ordinary people exercising moral agency—about nonviolent energies that sustain and improve the world. As Bhargava writes, this Gandhian secularism is badly needed today, but it requires faith in the wisdom of good, ordinary men and women.
Reading this book reminded me why Gandhi understood India so well: he grasped its diversity, contradictions, and potential for moral growth. In a time when his statues are contested and his name is casually maligned, this book insists that Gandhi’s ideas still hold the key to India’s survival as a plural, democratic civilization.
A must-read for anyone who cares about India’s moral and political future.
The book interrogates India’s secularism, democracy, and plural traditions with striking clarity. As Bhargava points out, secularism in India was never meant to be anti-religious. Instead, it was about critical respect for all religions, balancing recognition with critique. Gandhi understood this instinctively. He saw religions as the leaves of one tree—different in form, but nourished by the same trunk. In an age when Gandhi is slandered or dismissed, Bhargava shows us why his thought remains bulletproof: it was never about abstract ideals, but about lived moral agency.
Several highlights stood out for me. The idea that secularism is needed not only to protect minorities, but also Hindus from their own caste and gender orthodoxies, feels especially urgent. Bhargava also reclaims rituals, language, and dissent as vital components of human life—reminding us that we are not machines, but expressive beings who seek meaning in shared symbols and critical reflection. And his notion of “deep sociability,” that intrinsic desire humans have to connect even with those we disagree with, is one of the most hopeful insights I’ve read in a long time.
What struck me most, however, was how Gandhi’s everyday secularism comes alive in these pages. It is not about opportunistic “party secularism” or mechanical separation of state and religion. It is about ordinary people exercising moral agency—about nonviolent energies that sustain and improve the world. As Bhargava writes, this Gandhian secularism is badly needed today, but it requires faith in the wisdom of good, ordinary men and women.
Reading this book reminded me why Gandhi understood India so well: he grasped its diversity, contradictions, and potential for moral growth. In a time when his statues are contested and his name is casually maligned, this book insists that Gandhi’s ideas still hold the key to India’s survival as a plural, democratic civilization.
A must-read for anyone who cares about India’s moral and political future.
May 25, 2023
Rajeev Bhargava is an erudite scholar and these essays appeared in a regular newspaper column. The publishers have done him a disservice in this hagiographic collection - no doubt these must have been very topical and imperative when they appeared, but as a collection it is, like the proverbial curate's egg, good only in patches. About a dozen are very good, some are pedestrian, and many are by way of a public lament. Bhargava's gentle invitation to a dialogue and introspection on everyday moral and ethical transgressions are ineffective in this format in the absence of topicality.
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