Humanist Heritage: Meghnad Desai (1940–2025)

Lord Meghnad Desai was a distinguished economist, life peer, and committed humanist. He was a prominent advocate for secularism and a vocal champion for human rights. Throughout his career in academia and the House of Lords, Lord Desai consistently supported humanist causes, including the legalisation of assisted dying and the right to a legally recognised humanist marriage.

Born in Vadodara, India, in 1940, Meghnad Jagdishchandra Desai completed secondary school at the age of 14, going on to study at the University of Bombay. He won a scholarship to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where at 23 he obtained his PhD. Desai went on to become a prominent figure in UK academia and politics, teaching economics at the London School of Economics (LSE) from 1965 to 2003, where he also founded the Centre for the Study of Global Governance. He was active in the Labour Party, serving as its chair between 1986 and 1992, and was created a life peer in 1991.

Desai’s commitment to a fair and open society was evident in his parliamentary contributions. He was an active member of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group (APPHG) and consistently raised important questions concerning the role of religion or belief in public life. Always willing to challenge religious privilege in the education system, he strongly opposed the proliferation of state-funded religious schools, signing a letter in 2019 urging the government to ban new state schools able to select 100% of pupils based on their religious beliefs. He did so again in 2024, calling on the Education Secretary to keep the faith school admissions cap. He also campaigned for collective worship in state schools to be replaced with inclusive assemblies. During a 2021 debate on a Bill aiming to achieve this, he said:

I am a humanist and, while not a Satanist, certainly not a God-ist. I consider myself very lucky that I did not have a British education. I was therefore spared religious assemblies every year of my life while I was in school… It is a very strange idea that moral and various spiritual educations can be learned only by getting people together and haranguing them. The whole of school education should be doing that all the time—you do not need a special hour to get students together.

Desai was a dedicated campaigner for the legal recognition of humanist marriages, signing a joint letter in 2022 urging the government to take action and raising the issue in several oral questions. He also repeatedly called for the legalisation of assisted dying, saying in 2006: ‘I am an atheist and I have no fear, certainly no fear of God or the afterlife. I value my life, but I value it for the pleasure it gives me, and as soon as I cannot derive any pleasure, I want to be rid of it’.

Lord Desai died on 29 July 2025. LSE remembered him as ‘a distinguished thinker, writer, and economist, and a cherished member of the LSE community for over five decades’, and the Guardian as a man who ‘put telling the truth ahead of the pursuit of personal ambition’. Desai’s work in the House of Lords provided a crucial and respected platform for humanist arguments on law, education, and human rights. He was remembered by Humanists UK as a man whose career had been devoted to achieving a more rational and compassionate world.

Arguing about the World: The Work and Legacy of Meghnad Desai, edited by Mary Kaldor and Polly Vizard (2011)

Humanists UK mourns Lord Desai (1940-2025) | Humanists UK

In memory of Lord Meghnad Desai (1940–2025) | LSE

Lord Desai obituary | The Guardian