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Our Future India
Our vision for India 2047
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By Kunalika Gautam and Harshani Dharmadasa
This article was first published in its original multimedia form on Our Future Agenda. To see the full interactive version with visuals:
Seventy-nine years ago, a generation stood at the edge of independence and imagined a nation into being. They did not inherit certainty. They built it with conviction, compromise, and hope.
Today, we inherit that imagination. Our responsibility is not to preserve it. It is to evolve it.
As India approaches 100 years in 2047, the question is no longer only what India has achieved. It is what it must now become.
We are coming of age in a world that is less predictable than the one our predecessors shaped. Climate shocks disrupt lives in real time. Economic transitions create opportunity for some and uncertainty for many. Cities expand and inequalities deepen. Technology is reshaping how we think, connect, and understand truth. Geopolitics is fragmented and fast-moving, with direct consequences for everyday life.
These are not distant trends. They define the conditions in which young people are trying to build their futures. This generation is not defined by disruption alone.
We see possibility. Disruption can open space for new solutions. With foresight and courage, crises can drive reinvention. Solutions will come from many voices working together.
This belief sits at the heart of the Next Generation India Fellows initiative.
With 734 million citizens under 30, India is home to nearly one in ten young people globally. As the world’s largest democracy and a G20 leader, India’s choices will shape its own future and influence what development and opportunity look like for young people everywhere.
Over the past two years, the Next Generation India Fellows, supported by the United Nations Foundation and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, have worked to turn this moment into a forward-looking agenda.
This effort resulted in Our Future India, a youth-informed roadmap for India at 100. The report explores how to build a developed, inclusive, and future-ready democracy aligned with the ambition of Viksit Bharat 2047.
From disruption to direction
The report starts from a clear insight. The future will be shaped by how we respond to disruption. Five major forces are already reshaping India’s trajectory. These include climate volatility, technological change, shifts in work, governance pressures, and changes in global power. The report does not treat these as risks alone. It examines how they can be turned into opportunities through foresight, innovation, and inclusion, and along practical pathways:
Quick wins that can be implemented in the near term
Longer-term ideas that require testing, coordination, and sustained effort
These are designed as concrete actions for policymakers, institutions, and communities.
Three ideas to future-proof India
Across these areas, three institutional ideas stand out:
A Ministry of Future Affairs to embed long-term thinking in policy
A Youth Advisory Council to the Prime Minister to integrate young voices into decision-making
A Mission LiFE Youth Ambassador Programme to mobilize young people as leaders in sustainable living
These proposals focus on aligning governance with a young and fast-changing society.
What comes next
The past 79 years were about building a nation. The next 21 will shape what that nation stands for. India’s future will depend on whether institutions can listen, adapt, and act at the pace this moment requires. For our generation, the question is not whether change is coming.
It is whether we will shape it. And whether we will take responsibility for the India we choose to build.
About the Our Future India roadmap
The report was built with young people across India and the global diaspora. The Fellows engaged over 1,850 voices from across India and its diaspora through consultations, surveys, and expert interviews.
The Fellows also consulted more than 60 experts across over 30 institutions spanning civil society, government, academia, and the diaspora. The result is a set of priorities grounded in lived experience.
About Our Future Agenda
Our Future Agenda is a United Nations Foundation program dedicated to putting young people — especially from young countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America — at the heart of global decision-making and solving the world’s biggest challenges.
Learn more: www.ourfutureagenda.org