His book is a rumination on challenges to the idea of social and political tolerance, globally and in South Asia, in both democracies and autocracies. It examines some of the conceptual confusions associated with the idea of tolerance, and how these distortions arise. The Burden of Tolerance reflects on the new challenges to socio-political openness and acceptance, in a world increasingly affected by neo-populism--from Russia and Hungary to Turkey and the Philippines--and considers the sources of social resistance to them. Bhanu Mehta also connects this political development with larger changes in our thinking about self, identity, representation and the distinction between public and private. He concludes by contending that we not only need to fashion new concepts of freedom and pluralism, but should even reimagine the idea of the state itself.