Over the past several years, watching raging social media debates and the shaping of merit in public discourse in India spurred this editorial on merit in public health/policy that appeared in BMJ Global Health as an editorial on August 6, 2021. Many thanks to Seye Abimbola, the journal’s Editor-in-Chief for his comments. As noted in the acknowledgements, a lot of internal reflection and churning from various life events, many of them not necessarily pleasant have shaped this editorial.