India became politically independent in 1947. Priyank Bharadwaj and Sankrant Sanu argue that it has not yet become truly free. The institutions inherited from colonial rule — and the ideological frameworks layered on top of them after Independence — were built for a different era, a different scale, and a different idea of what India is. As the expectations of Indian citizens expand and the challenges of the twenty-first century accumulate, those institutions are being asked to do things they were never designed for.
The Third Republic is not a reform proposal for one ministry or another. It is a more fundamental argument: that the foundational purpose and structure of the Indian state need to be thought through from first principles. Bharadwaj and Sanu draw on political thought, historical statecraft, and India's civilisational memory to ask what a genuinely self-aware Indian republic would look like — one that draws on its own traditions rather than managing borrowed ones.
Serious and deliberately ambitious, this is a book for readers willing to question not just how India governs itself but what it believes governance is for.
-:ABOUT THE BOOK:- India gained political independence, but not swatantrata. The institutions of the modern Indian state were shaped by colonial inheritances, post-Independence compulsions, and ideological frameworks that no longer serve the country's scale, aspirations, or civilizational self-understanding. The expectations and aspirations of India's citizens are rising, but is the Indian state adequate to respond to them? In The Third Republic, Priyank Bharadwaj and Sankrant Sanu argue that India must move beyond inherited structures and rethink the state at its foundations. This is not a call for superficial reform of one institution or another, but a deeper search that begins by questioning the very purpose and foundations of the state. It calls for a deeper reimagining of governance, institutions, and national purpose-rooted in India's own historical experience, cultural memory, and civilizational ethos. Bringing together political thought, statecraft, and a bold vision for India's future, this book asks what kind of republic India must become to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Serious, ambitious, and timely, The Third Republic is an invitation to rethink the Indian state-and to imagine a more self-aware and confident future for India.
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