When India looks towards 2047, the centenary of its independence, the question is not merely how prosperous or technologically advanced the country will become, but what kind of democracy and constitutional order it will represent. Former Odisha High Court Chief Justice S. Muralidhar, in his 28th D.S. Borker Memorial Lecture on “My Vision of India: 2047” on Aug. 24, 2026, offered a deeply constitutional vision of the country’s future. With senior advocate Indira Jaising chairing the session, Justice Muralidhar argued that India’s future must be built around a legal system that is accessible, accountable, transparent and centred on the people it is meant to serve.
At the heart of his vision was a fundamental concern: the legal system must cease to alienate ordinary citizens. He criticised the ‘mystifying procedures and legalese’ that make courts difficult for ordinary litigants to navigate. What India needs is ‘process re-engineering’, a fundamental transformation in the manner in which justice is delivered.
Justice Muralidhar placed particular emphasis on the education of future lawyers and judges. His India of 2047 would have law students trained not simply to understand statutes and procedures but to recognise and challenge injustice. They should imbibe constitutional values and develop the courage to question power and authority. Such students could become fearless and independent lawyers and eventually judges capable of protecting constitutional democracy.
He identified three long-standing problems, costs, delays and uncertainties, as the major weaknesses of the formal legal system. Decades of commissions, committees, research bodies and institutional initiatives have already examined these problems. The existence of the National Court Management System and the Supreme Court’s e-Courts Mission Mode Project, among other initiatives, means that India does not lack recommendations or institutional mechanisms. What is required now is action on the knowledge and recommendations that already exist rather than the creation of yet more committees.
Justice Muralidhar also made a strong case for protecting individual freedom in the India of 2047. He argued that criminalising personal choices about whom people marry or live with must end. Law should not become an instrument for targeting people based on what they wear or eat. Equally important, citizens must remain free to criticise governments and political leaders, including through cartoons, humour and stand-up comedy. A healthy democracy, in his vision, must have space for criticism.
Justice Muralidhar argued that governments must stop weaponising the law against citizens protesting peacefully over the denial of basic rights. Protesters should not automatically be portrayed as conspirators attempting to destabilise the government. He also called for the repeal of preventive detention laws and harsh bail-denying provisions under laws such as the UAPA and PMLA, envisioning a future in which such provisions survive only as historical material in parliamentary and judicial archives.
An effective judiciary is also one that responds swiftly to grave violations by the State. Justice Muralidhar expressed concern about constitutional and major public-law questions taking years to be decided, pointing to cases concerning the reduction of a state to a Union Territory, demonetisation and electoral bonds. His vision of the Supreme Court in 2047 is therefore one that delivers timely constitutional justice rather than allowing crucial questions to remain unresolved for years.
He urged future generations to remember some of the darkest episodes in India’s judicial history only as warnings from the past. These include judicial approval of the Emergency, failures in dealing with mass crimes, the injustice surrounding mass torts such as the Bhopal gas disaster, delays in habeas corpus petitions, and inadequate judicial responses to encounter killings, disappearances, arbitrary demolitions and the suppression of tribal protests. Particularly significant was his reference to demolitions of homes belonging to dissenters and minorities, highlighting the danger when executive power is exercised without adherence to due process.
Justice Muralidhar imagined an India where people would be astonished to learn that the law once punished the poor merely for who they were, criminalised begging or sleeping on pavements because of homelessness, or punished vulnerable people rather than those who exploited them. He also criticised failures to enforce judicial declarations concerning internet shutdowns and arbitrary demolitions, including demolitions involving protesters and people merely accused of crimes, particularly members of minorities.
By 2047, he hopes India will have eliminated manual scavenging, human sewer cleaning, child rag-picking, bonded and child labour, dowry deaths, female foeticide, sex-selective abortions and witch-hunting. He also called for an end to mob lynching, public humiliation of Dalits, targeting of religious minorities in the name of religion and aggressive assertions of religious superiority by dominant groups.
For this transformation, Justice Muralidhar argued that judicial education itself must change. Judicial Academies should train judges in the relationship between law and poverty and remind them that the judiciary exists to protect people from excesses of the State and powerful dominant groups. Courts must strengthen their ability to demand accountability and transparency from governments. If courts and their procedures themselves become sites of oppression, he warned, public faith in the justice system will inevitably decline.
Justice Muralidhar, however, did not present an entirely optimistic picture. He highlighted growing inequalities in wealth and power, and expressed concern over corporate oligopolies influencing governments and democratic processes. He warned that democratic institutions can be subverted to create elected autocracies that subsequently capture institutions meant to provide accountability. Technology, too, presents a serious challenge, it can be weaponised for mass surveillance, while powerful corporations may control and share information about citizens with regimes that have little respect for the rule of law.
He described the recent Gen Z protests as evidence that democracy in India would not simply be allowed to die. He saw in the young generation a willingness to turn towards the Constitution and defend it as a means of safeguarding the country’s future. The week beginning July 20, he said, brought relief and joy because it demonstrated that young Indians could resist rhetoric, propaganda and empty political promises. He highlighted their readiness to question those in power.
His final picture of India in 2047 combined hope with realism. He imagined a country retaining its diversity of languages, cultures, food, music, art, festivals, religions and traditions, while remaining inclusive and plural. He envisioned peace and intact national unity.
Justice Muralidhar’s Vision 2047 is ultimately a vision of constitutional citizenship. It is an India where dissent is not treated as disloyalty, protest is not automatically criminalised, minorities are not targeted, lynching and social humiliation are consigned to history, and demolitions do not replace due process. It is an India where courts protect citizens from State excesses, judges understand the realities of poverty, lawyers possess the courage to question authority, and young people remain willing to defend constitutional values.
The significance of his message lies in the fact that his vision of 2047 begins with responsibilities in the present. The India he imagines cannot be created merely through economic growth, technological advancement or political slogans. It requires institutions that respect constitutional limits and citizens who refuse to surrender their freedoms.