There are words that belong to the noise of politics, and there are words that belong to the architecture of civilization. Progressivism — पुरोगामित्व — is not a slogan coined for election seasons. It is a metaphysical orientation. A direction in time. A covenant with evolution itself.
Maharashtra’s history is not merely administrative geography; it is a moral topography shaped by saints, reformers, rationalists, and rebels of conscience. From the abhangas sung on dusty pilgrim roads to the legislative battles fought in modern assemblies, the state has carried a distinct inheritance: a commitment to reason, equality, and moral courage.
That inheritance is not ornamental. It is responsibility.
As India approaches the centenary of its independence in 2047, the next twenty-five years will determine whether Maharashtra continues to breathe the winds of progress — or hesitates at the edge of regression. The youth must understand that “progressive” and “reactionary” are not mere political coins; they are opposing directions in the journey of human consciousness. One moves forward into complexity and freedom. The other retreats into fear and hierarchy.
To choose between them is to choose the future.
I. Progressivism as the Law of the Universe
Long before human societies debated reform, the cosmos had already chosen progress.
The universe began in a primordial expansion — a movement from chaos to structure, from energy to matter, from elementary particles to galaxies. Modern cosmology describes a 13.8-billion-year arc from simplicity to staggering complexity. Evolution on Earth mirrors this ascent: from single-celled organisms to conscious beings capable of self-reflection.
The French philosopher Henri Bergson called it élan vital — the vital impulse of life pushing toward greater forms. The German thinker G. W. F. Hegel described history as the unfolding of Spirit toward freedom. Charles Darwin, without metaphysical rhetoric, demonstrated the biological engine of adaptive transformation.
Nature does not move backward. It adapts, experiments, refines.
If evolution is the grammar of life, then progress is its syntax.
How, then, can the permanent disposition of human consciousness be regression?
A child’s first instinct is inquiry — “Why?” That question is the seed of progressivism. The refusal to ask is the beginning of decline.
II. The Philosophical Foundations of Progress
In Western thought, progress found moral articulation in the Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant urged humanity to emerge from “self-imposed immaturity” by daring to know. John Stuart Mill defended liberty of thought as the engine of social improvement. Karl Popper later argued that an open society survives only through criticism and falsifiability.
Yet progress is not solely Western. Indian civilization contains its own currents of radical reform.
The Buddha challenged ritual orthodoxy. The Upanishads dethroned blind formalism in favor of inquiry. The Bhagavad Gita replaced ritual fatalism with ethical action.
In Maharashtra, this spirit took lyrical and revolutionary forms.
III. Sant Tradition: Equality in Song
When Sant Tukaram sang his abhangas in the 17th century, he did more than compose devotional poetry. He struck at caste arrogance and ritual monopolies. He placed spiritual dignity in the common man. His verses democratized transcendence.
Similarly, Sant Dnyaneshwar brought philosophical knowledge into Marathi through the Dnyaneshwari, dissolving linguistic elitism. Spiritual insight was no longer confined to Sanskritic gatekeeping.
These were not minor cultural gestures. They were epistemological revolutions.
The saints insisted that divinity does not recognize caste. If God is universal, then social hierarchy is a human distortion.
That was progressivism.
IV. Social Reform: Breaking the Architecture of Regression
Centuries later, Maharashtra again confronted entrenched structures of inequality.
Jyotirao Phule and Savitribai Phule opened schools for girls and marginalized communities, challenging Brahmanical patriarchy at its roots. Education became an instrument of liberation.
Shahu Maharaj institutionalized affirmative measures to dismantle structural inequity. And B. R. Ambedkar — architect of the Indian Constitution — transformed moral protest into constitutional principle.
Ambedkar understood that democracy is not merely a political mechanism; it is a social ethic. Without fraternity, liberty decays into privilege.
These reformers faced ridicule, boycott, and hostility. But history vindicated them. Their struggle was not against tradition as such; it was against stagnation masquerading as tradition.
V. Scientific Temper: The Constitutional Imperative
India’s Constitution, under Article 51A(h), calls upon citizens to develop scientific temper. This is not ornamental rhetoric. It is recognition that progress requires method: observation, skepticism, experiment, verification.
When Galileo shifted the heavens from divine temper to celestial mechanics, he embodied intellectual courage. When Pasteur replaced superstition with germ theory, he liberated medicine. When printing presses democratized knowledge, monopolies trembled.
Scientific temper is progressivism operationalized.
Regression, by contrast, is not natural evolution. It is constructed. It thrives on fear — fear of heaven and hell, fear of impurity, fear of dissent. It wraps power in sacred language and labels questioning as betrayal.
Fear is its weapon. Ignorance its armor. Tradition its shield.
But knowledge expands. Education spreads. Information circulates. The monopoly fractures.
VI. The New Face of Reaction
Regression in the 21st century does not sit in caves chanting incantations. It operates through algorithms. It repackages myth with digital graphics. It circulates misinformation at viral speed. It questions science while using smartphones engineered by the very science it doubts.
It weaponizes nostalgia.
This is the paradox of modern reactionary culture: technologically sophisticated, philosophically regressive.
Progressivism is not threatened by faith; it is threatened by anti-reason. It does not fear culture; it fears coercion. It does not reject heritage; it rejects hierarchy.
The conflict is not between past and present. It is between openness and closure.
VII. Maharashtra at the Crossroads
Maharashtra has long been regarded as a progressive state — industrially dynamic, culturally vibrant, intellectually restless. Mumbai’s financial energy, Pune’s educational institutions, Nagpur’s administrative centrality — these are not accidents. They are products of an ecosystem that historically valued reform and reason.
But progress is not self-sustaining. It requires vigilance.
If public discourse begins to penalize questioning…
If education substitutes memorization for inquiry…
If history becomes propaganda…
If equality is replaced by symbolic appeasement…
then the direction shifts subtly — almost imperceptibly — from forward to backward.
Progressivism must be renewed in every generation.
VIII. The Youth as Custodians of the Flame
The coming twenty-five years will define India’s centenary destiny. Maharashtra’s youth — educated, connected, aspirational — must grasp that progressivism is not rebellion for its own sake. It is alignment with the evolutionary arc of civilization.
To be progressive is:
- To defend scientific temper.
- To insist on equality beyond rhetoric.
- To protect freedom of expression.
- To question authority without fear.
- To place reason above rumor.
The philosopher Bertrand Russell once remarked that the whole problem with the world is that fools are certain and the wise are full of doubts. Doubt is not weakness; it is the engine of refinement.
The saints of Maharashtra sang doubt into devotion. The reformers legislated doubt into justice. The scientists institutionalized doubt into method.
This is the lineage.
IX. Progress as Moral Alignment with Evolution
Progressivism is not mere social reform rhetoric. It is alignment with the universe’s tendency toward complexity, consciousness, and freedom. To resist this movement is to fossilize oneself against the current of time.
Evolution does not reverse. Galaxies do not collapse back into singularity at whim. Humanity, too, cannot afford civilizational regression.
The struggle today is not won by hatred but by reason. Not by censorship but by dialogue. Not by violence but by education.
The progressive mind does not fear scrutiny. It invites it.
The Torch Forward
Human nature is not static. It questions. It explores. It creates. As long as that instinct survives, darkness cannot permanently prevail.
Maharashtra’s identity — shaped by saints like Tukaram, reformers like Phule and Ambedkar, thinkers who translated knowledge into the vernacular of the people — is not a relic. It is a torch.
The youth must carry it.
Because progressivism is not merely a political stance. It is the human alignment with evolution. It is the refusal to surrender curiosity to fear. It is the insistence that dignity belongs to all.
And if Maharashtra remains true to that inheritance — if it chooses forward over backward, inquiry over intimidation, equality over hierarchy — it will not merely keep pace with India’s centenary.
It will lead.
-Mahesh Zagade
Mahesh Zagade, IASx 