"We, the people of India, have solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic..."

Of late, these lines have been reverberating in my head for reasons I myself struggle to fully understand. It is strange how a sentence drafted decades before my birth can still stir emotions stronger than any other relationship. Every time I hear those words, I experience an unusual sense of pride, almost as if I were physically present in that historic moment when we announced ourselves as a Republic.

Often, I find myself imagining that moment in the Constituent Assembly. Of course, the imagination comes from whatever we have read or heard from our teachers. Yet, I think about what our leaders, freedom fighters, workers, women, labourers, farmers, teachers, and ordinary citizens would have felt while giving themselves this Republic?

For a country emerging from colonial exploitation, partition, poverty, illiteracy, and unimaginable social divisions, the road ahead was not easy. Yet we chose democracy, constitutional morality, and institutional governance over authoritarianism or chaos.

Perhaps what would truly distinguish that generation from ours may not be the emotion alone but the imagination of India, based on what freedom really meant to them, beyond mere transfer of power.

What would their idea of education or employment have been? Would they have measured education merely through literacy statistics, institutional rankings, or examination scores? Or would they have imagined it as a tool capable of liberating generations from poverty, discrimination, dependence, and hopelessness?

What would economic participation mean to them? Surely not an economy where millions remain educated yet unemployed, skilled yet underpaid, and hardworking yet excluded from dignity.

Was their idea of development restricted to highways and GDP growth, or was it linked with justice, equality, opportunity, health, and human capability? We are not in a position to answer these questions.

However, as we speak about becoming a "Viksit Bharat," it is high time to pause and honestly ask ourselves: are we building a developed nation, or are we merely constructing the appearance of one?

We cannot deny the fact that we are one of the fastest-growing economies. Our digital public infrastructure has drawn global attention. From UPI transactions to Aadhaar-enabled services, from expressways to semiconductor ambitions, the Indian state today projects confidence and scale.

But development cannot be understood through the lens of mere numbers. GDP can tell us how much the economy produces. But it cannot tell us if people escape extreme poverty. It certainly cannot tell us about their ability to thrive in a volatile environment like the one we are facing now.

A nation becomes truly developed when growth translates into security, dignity, fairness, and opportunity for ordinary citizens, not merely for those who already possess privilege, networks, inheritance, or access. And this is where the discomfort begins.

If we look at the recent Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), youth unemployment in the 15-29 age group rose to nearly 15.2 per cent in March 2026, the highest level in the last four quarters. What is even more worrying is the widening gender gap.

Unemployment among young women rose sharply to 17.7 per cent, consistently remaining far above male unemployment levels through most of the year. In simple terms, nearly one in six young women who are willing to work are unable to find employment. This is not merely an economic statistic; it is a social warning.

Across the country, millions of young people spend years preparing for government examinations. It is not new to see thousands of applications being filed for the post of a peon. It is a pity that even professionals like MBAs and LLBs have to apply for such positions!

After years of preparation and spending money (often borrowed by parents from different sources) on coaching centres, what they get in return is news of paper leaks, exam cancellations, and the way selection processes are rigged. And when the selection processes are challenged in courts, vacancies remain unfilled for years while overage aspirants quietly slip into frustration and invisibility.

Meanwhile, some of them, who no longer have the patience to bear this injustice, leave this world by putting themselves to death. Yet, we continue to use the same strategy without an iota of change. While young people continue to struggle with uncertainty, they are still claimed as the world's greatest demographic dividend!

Beyond mere unemployment statistics, have we paused to think how this failure to generate secure and dignified livelihoods gradually erodes the social fabric itself? Persistent economic insecurity does not remain confined to labour reports; it spills into homes, relationships, mental health, and public trust, eventually leading to an unstable society.

A generation that studies relentlessly yet remains uncertain about employment, financial independence, or social mobility does not merely become economically vulnerable; it becomes emotionally exhausted, institutionally disillusioned and socially restless.

Perhaps this explains why a satirical online movement like the so-called "Cockroach Janata Party" suddenly resonated with large sections of India's youth. It is no small wonder that the movement attracted 22 million followers within days.

The same contradiction is visible in education. India wants to become a global knowledge economy. Yet our students continue to navigate an ecosystem dominated by extreme competition, coaching dependency, paper leak scandals, mental health pressures, and deep inequality in educational access.

Can a child studying in a government school that faces a shortage of basic resources, including the continued absence or shortage of teachers, truly compete equally with someone born into elite educational privilege? Can we honestly speak of equal opportunity while millions of children still struggle with learning poverty, digital divides, malnutrition, and uneven schooling quality?

Forget education; we, as a nation, are unable to provide something as basic as potable water to our people. This is not just about the remotest village or a tribal region in the country. The problem is equally persistent in the national capital. In fact, it should ideally be called the tankers' capital, where the Jal Board does not have enough water, but the private water tankers do, at a huge price!

Even access to basic healthcare continues to remain deeply unequal across the country. According to the National Health Accounts Estimates, nearly 40 per cent of healthcare expenditure in India is still borne directly by citizens from their own pockets, pushing millions into financial distress every year.

Perhaps the starkest reminder of India's unequal reality is that, even today, nearly 80 crore Indians continue to depend on free food grains under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana for basic survival. While the scheme has undoubtedly prevented extreme hunger for millions, it also reveals an uncomfortable truth: a nation aspiring to become a global economic superpower still has a large section of its population dependent on state-supported rations for food security!

And yet, when it comes to increasing fuel prices, we do not think twice and find it convenient to pass on the entire loss to people who struggle to get two square meals a day.

Yes, we are certainly passing through a tough time. But how fair is it to pass on the entire burden to people who spend over 45 per cent of their monthly expenditure on food, and who have very little room to absorb such inflationary shocks?

And the most painful contradiction, however, lies in the way women are treated. We believed that education has the power to liberate society and rid it of the evils that have affected it for centuries. On the contrary, as we progress, crime against women has only increased and has become more heinous.

The recent dowry death cases, including the case of Twisha Sharma, disturbed the nation not simply because they were tragic, but because they revealed something deeply uncomfortable: economic modernisation has not necessarily transformed into social morality.

We produce women CEOs, scientists, fighter pilots, entrepreneurs, and civil servants, yet we continue to lose daughters to dowry, domestic abuse, honour-based violence, and everyday misogyny. This contradiction should shame us collectively.

The strength of a Republic is measured not only by military parades or GDP rankings, but also by how safe and respected its women feel in ordinary daily life.

The same applies to labour dignity. Across multiple sectors, workers continue to protest against delayed wages, precarious contractual work, unsafe conditions, and shrinking safety nets. Yet, we have nothing beyond policies and dialogues, with no real change on the ground.

There is no end to these contradictions. Increasingly, disagreement itself is viewed with suspicion. Citizens questioning institutions are often labelled rather than heard. Democracies weaken not when citizens ask difficult questions, but when societies stop tolerating them.

Those who framed our Constitution certainly did not imagine India as a market, balancing demand and supply, but they certainly imagined a country, a just society, a free nation, where dissent was respected and addressed, where people could hold our elected representatives accountable for their decisions. We are gradually drifting away from the moral imagination with which this Republic was founded.

Perhaps before our elected representatives speak of a "Viksit Bharat," they must pause and remember the oath they took under the Constitution, "that I will do right to all manner of people... without fear or favour, affection or ill-will."

Because the Republic was never imagined as a nation where development is experienced only by a few. The true measure of India's rise will not lie merely in becoming the world's third-largest economy, but in whether the citizens at the last mile also feel that we kept our promise to them. Only then will the Constitution cease to be merely a document we celebrate, and become a promise we truly honour.