As I enter the twilight years of my life, I often wonder what kind of country we are bequeathing to the next generation.Nothing is more distressing than the quality of our public life – the frightening decline in political discourse, the inability to remain objective in the face of facts, and, above all, our growing inability to distinguish between people, party and issues when seeking solutions to difficult problems.Independence Day provides a unique opportunity for calm, non-partisan reflection – a mixture of nostalgia, pride, hope, apprehension and poignancy. We have undoubtedly made extraordinary progress since 1947. Yet Tagore’s exhortation in Gitanjali to let reason prevail should make us ask some uncomfortable questions.Where are we going as a nation? And why have we made it so difficult simply to do the right thing?In 2021, as part of an ‘India@75’ series for the national edition of a major publication, I had written with considerable optimism about India’s trajectory, although I also identified warning signals. Five years later, I find myself considerably more concerned.The problem is not that politicians disagree, or ruthlessly and unscrupulously seek power. These are inherent in democracies though the paths could be more refined.The deeper problem is that we have reached a point where doing the right thing has become politically more difficult than doing the politically expedient thing.Consider major events over the last three years. Let’s reflect on Manipur. It should not have required an extreme step of a no-confidence motion in 2023 for the prime minister to speak at length about a devastating internal conflict involving displacement, destruction and horrific violence against women – indeed an abject surrender of the state with constabularies being looted in broad daylight. Instead of becoming a moment for national introspection and bipartisan problem-solving, parliament descended into accusation and counter-accusation.Doing the right thing was obvious: acknowledge the suffering, establish accountability, restore security and rebuild trust.Political discourse across the spectrum in the 2024 elections increasingly revolved around identity, fear and emotive symbolism — mangalsutra (a necklace worn by married Hindu women), mandir (temple), ‘mandi mein kya bhav (what’s the market price)’ and competing narratives designed to divide the electorate. There was remarkably little sustained conversation about the issues that determine what kind of India we leave behind: polluted air, unsafe cities, collapsing infrastructure, railway safety, education, employment and widening economic disparities. The structure of political incentives is increasingly rewarding what is electorally effective rather than what is a national necessity.Also read: Six Reasons Why Modi Is Still Silent on ManipurThe R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital rape and murder in Kolkata in 2024 is again in the news today. The tragedy was especially disturbing because it involved the state’s most sacred duty — ensuring security and justice. The crime on a young doctor at her workplace, followed by serious questions over the initial institutional response, investigation and subsequent vandalism of the crime site, severely eroded public confidence in governance.In 2025, even the avoidable became normal. At the Maha Kumbh, where the scale and risks of an unprecedented gathering were known in advance, a crowd crush killed pilgrims. The scale of the gathering was known; crowd behaviour was predictable; previous Kumbh stampedes were part of history. Yet basic risk management still failed. The issue isn’t merely that an accident happened—it is why known risks weren’t acted upon beforehand. The pattern repeated itself in the Bengaluru stampede after the Royal Challenger’s Bangalore’s Indian Premier League victory event, and the Lionel Messi fiasco in Kolkata. Increasingly, governance seems to be hostage to either repeated incompetence or political interference and prevents us from doing the right thing.The recent student agitation in 2026 over examination irregularities provides an even simpler illustration of the failure to do the right thing.Thousands of young people protested after repeated examination controversies and alleged paper leaks. Instead of engaging them early with sincerity, the confrontation escalated into brutal police action. The Supreme Court subsequently sought a fair and independent investigation into allegations of excessive force.Whatever one’s view of the protesters’ methods or demands, why could engagement and dialogue not be the government’s first response? If the confrontation could ultimately be resolved through discussion, why was it allowed to escalate to a breaking point before the government was forced to choose the path of reason? This is precisely the distinction between governance and political management. The right thing is not always to defeat an agitation; sometimes it is to understand why it began.More recent politics provides repeated warnings. Seven of AAP’s 10 Rajya Sabha members crossed over to the BJP this year. Similar with the Uddhav Bal Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena and the Trinamool Congress in various forms. The moves may be legally defensible under the anti-defection law, but democracy is not merely about what is legally permissible. It is primarily about who ultimately owns the voter’s mandate, and what is the spirit behind the legislation.In summary, if 2023 was about the failure to intervene, 2024 was about the failure to protect, 2025 the failure to prevent and 2026 about the ease of exploiting the system within existing laws. Whereas just doing the right thing would have been so simple – and reassuring.Parliament itself is increasingly becoming a theatre of disruption. Governments are using their majority to avoid uncomfortable questions whilst opposition parties use disruption to make the point. Both are forms of political convenience. Neither is doing the right thing for the electorate they are supposed to represent.The continuing Union–state confrontation over governors exposes how constitutional offices become instruments of political warfare. A governor is not meant to function as an extension of the Union government, just as an elected state government cannot treat the governor as a political adversary. When constitutional positions become battlegrounds for partisan interests, it is the institution itself that suffers.Institutions survive when those who occupy them remember that the office is bigger than the person, and the constitutional duty bigger than political allegiance.Our civilisational memory which is quoted often contains a warning. In the Mahabharat, the humiliation of Draupadi became catastrophic not merely because of the original act, but because those possessing authority failed to intervene when intervention was morally imperative. Once justice then transforms to retribution, as Ashwatthama demonstrated, there are no real winners.The lesson is painfully contemporary. If institutions fail to deliver justice, societies eventually seek it themselves. If politics continually teaches citizens that the other side is the enemy, political disagreement can transmute to social hatred. Unfortunately this is happening across society today – whether in WhatsApp groups of school friends, residential communities, TV debates or simply in ordinary gatherings of people.And yet there is hope.The Indian people have repeatedly demonstrated a stronger democratic instinct than many politicians give them credit for. Bengal and Punjab, with their historic traditions of resistance, have shown that citizens can rise above party loyalty when fundamental questions of dignity, security and justice are threatened.Perhaps the real danger is not that India will suddenly cease to be a democracy. It is that we may retain all the outward forms of democracy while gradually losing the habits that make democracy effective and trustworthy — independent institutions, parliamentary debate, an accountable executive, a responsible Opposition, an impartial administration and constitutional restraint.Ambedkar’s warning in November 1949 in the constituent assembly deserves repetition: constitutional forms alone cannot save democracy if those entrusted with them place party, caste, creed or sectional interest above the nation.Every Independence Day, we celebrate the moment India became politically free.Perhaps we should also ask what freedom demands of us eight decades later.Freedom from arbitrary power and political revenge ; liberty to disagree without becoming enemies and to demand justice without any political alignment or public agitation.And, above all, the emancipation of those in power to do what is right even when it is politically inconvenient.India does not need another slogan. It needs to rediscover its polestar. Right and wrong are ultimately functions of the North Star we choose to follow. The Constitution remains that polestar – the moral and institutional framework within which power must be exercised.Our politicians are only temporary custodians of a republic that belongs to generations they will never meet.And perhaps, on the morning after every Independence Day, that is the question we should ask:Did we leave India a little more just, a little more tolerant and a little more united than we found it?If the answer is not an unequivocal yes, perhaps we have some serious thinking – and some right things – to do after the Independence Day celebrations.Prabal Basu Roy is a Sloan Fellow of the London Business School and a Board Member.