Srinagar, April 23 -- The Enlightenment was Europe's most decisive intellectual upheaval, a rationalist revolution that redefined liberty, rights, and the social contract. Due to this movement, Europe became the crucible of rationalist ideas, yet their implications spread globally, inspiring revolutions, reforms, and cultural transformations far beyond its borders.

The Enlightenment's rationalist foundations challenged Europe's ancient regime. Locke's insistence that government must rest upon the consent of the governed, articulated in Two Treatises of Government, undermined divine-right monarchy and became the intellectual bedrock of constitutionalism. Rousseau's Social Contract declared that sovereignty resides in the general will, a r...