Gurcharan Das on why it’s lonely being an Indian liberal
There had been Indian (as opposed to merely Bengali) Liberals since the 1860's Once Gladstone got behind Irish Home Rule, educated Indians worshipped him. Lord Ripon was considered a Liberal Viceroy. Indian Liberalism was Nationalistic but attracted few Muslims. An "Indian National Liberal Federation" was founded in 1919. by Surendranath Banerjee. Its prominent leaders were Tej Bahadur Sapru, V. S. Srinivasa Sastri and M. R. Jayakar. Once it got a corrupt deal with Manchester (Mody-Lees) it lost salience. The plain truth is, Liberalism had died in England itself. The thing was a fossil.
But the attraction of Hindu nationalism will fade, argues the author
The author's family had to run away from what is now Pakistan because Muslims insisted they were a separate nation. To make room for Hindu and Sikh refugees, Nehru presided over massive ethnic cleansing of Muslims. Hindu India may not be very attractive but it is paradise for non-Muslims who continue to face persecution in neighboring Islamic states- unless like the Rohingyas, it is the Buddhists they have to worry about.
I grew up in an India that was a proud liberal democracy saddled with an illiberal, over-regulated economy that micro-managed private enterprise.
No. Gurcharan grew up in an India that was ruled by Nehru- a Socialist- though its ideology was Gandhian- i.e. autarkic and opposed to free trade. The 'swadeshi' doctrine stressed village self-reliance. It was opposed to trade on the basis of comparative advantage. During the War, and for the first few years of post-War reconstruction, all countries had 'price czars' and quotas. India's Planning Commission wasn't greatly different from that of other countries during that period (or, later on, the Malaysian Planning System). The difference was that the Indians did stupid shit. Japan's MITI didn't. Taiwan didn't- which is why the world depends on its silicon chips. Nkrumah's Ghana- from which Arthur Lewis was told to fuck the fuck off- was similar to India. Stupidity isn't an Indian monopoly.
We called it the Licence Raj.
Rajaji called it that.
I worked for a company that made Vicks VapoRub. One year there was a flu epidemic and sales of Vicks went through the roof. At the end of the year a summons arrived from the government, claiming my company had broken the law: sales had exceeded the production of Vicks authorised in our licence. It was a criminal offence, we were told.
To be fair, lots of elderly Indians back then thought that things like soap and toothpaste and allopathic medicine were evil Western fads. You should use Ayurvedic or Unani or homeopathic remedies. The maha-crackpot, it is true, had to discontinue Ayurvedic treatment because it made him too ill. But he promised to resume it once Western medicine had cured him. Obviously, if Ayurveda is poisoning you, it is only because you haven't developed enough 'soul force' by sleeping naked with young girls. I may mention that Dr. Pranjivan Mehta- who had won a medical scholarship to the UK- didn't believe in the germ theory of disease. Like the maha-crackpot he was against vaccination and quarantine. Sadly, he didn't understand that you also need to sleep naked with young girls.
I was asked to appear at a hearing before a government official. I explained that the epidemic had resulted in extra demand; we were only doing our duty, keeping store shelves stocked. But the official pronounced us guilty, declaring that the law would now take its course.
At which point, you send a case of Scotch to his bungalow. Sadly, Gandhian ministers insisted on a briefcase full of cash.
As I got up to leave, I asked the official to imagine how our country would look to the world when news broke that our government had punished someone for alleviating the misery of millions during an epidemic.
In other words, Gurcharan threatened the official. Once the Press got hold of the story, some disgruntled peon would come forward to explain who had been bribed on which occasion. It's not that stories about corruption could bring down a government. It's just that there would be internal dissension. Politicians who hadn't received their cut would be enraged.
In the end, the government quietly dropped the case.
Because the Government prosecutors were shit. Also bureaucrats don't know the fucking law. They are too stupid.
But I abandoned socialism to become a classical liberal and joined the liberal Swatantra Party.
By then it was a feudal, casteist, piece of shit.
Liberalism offered me a philosophy that champions human progress that does not expect it to come solely from the state.
Hinduism does that. Read the Vyadha Gita- which is the dual of the Bhagvad Gita. The wealthy meat vendor (Vyadha) ignores Priests and Pundits and lives a luxurious life while tasting the honeyed wisdom of the Chandogya Upanishad. He represents private enterprise which Lord Buddha praised greatly. Islam too praised 'Tijarat' (commerce) as the foundation (Imarat) of the State. There was no need to turn to a parochial Anglo Saxon version of a traditional creed expressed (in Europe) by the Lex Mercatoria. What fools who studied at Harvard don't understand is that Tudor monopolies were an innovation against which the Common Law of Lord Coke was pushing back. Whiggery was conservative in that it appealed to a pre-Tudor (or pre-absolutist) notion of limited Government. 'Liberties' were geographical areas where the Crown had restricted its own powers so as to promote commerce. Liberalism was the notion that such 'Liberties' should be infinitely expanded. This had nothing to do with John Locke or other such pamphleteers.
I learned to believe in the liberal virtues of openness, mutual respect and tolerance of others’ views.
There are no such 'virtues'. Liberalism is about kicking out, or marginalizing, political forces opposed to it. The doctrine of laissez faire is purely economic.
India had to wait until the liberalisation of 1991 to win its economic freedom, after sacrificing two generations to missed opportunities.
Sadly, that liberalization was limited in scope.
I wrote a book, “India Unbound”, predicting the rise of India based on the reforms.
With hindsight, it was complacent as was the slogan 'India grows by night'. To his credit, Manmohan saw the necessity of further root and branch reform. But organized labor, Green Revolution farmers and 'Civil Society' can push back against such things. As Edwin Lim of the World Bank explained, in India the reward for preventing infrastructure investment and development is much higher than helping the country to rise. This meant that the World Bank was disintermediated. Adanis and Ambanis were left to pick up the slack. This wasn't 'crony Capitalism'. It was the State being held down by activists and fucked in the ass. Billionaires, however, could ignore the activists because if you can get Rihanna to show up for your pre-wedding bash, fuck you care about jhollawallahs?
India obliged by becoming the world’s second-fastest-growing large economy, expanding at an average annual rate of almost 6% over the next 30 years, lifting 400m people out of poverty and expanding the middle class from 10% to 30% of the population.
But politicians wanted that middle class to pay for Islamic militancy. They weren't thrilled. Helping poor Dalit Hindus is one thing. Subsidizing madrasas so they can produce terrorists is another.
But just when everything seemed to be going well, democracy began to weaken.
This cretin does not understand that if a country is being ruled for a nice foreign lady it isn't a democracy. It is a feudal shithole.
The past decade has seen the rise of identity politics, majoritarianism, Hindu nationalism and Islamophobia.
No. It has seen the BJP displace the INC and gain parliamentary majorities, thus putting an end to the era of coalition governments which existed between 1989 to 2014. But this has to do with the fact that Rahul is gun-shy. He remembers what happened to his granny and daddy. Sadly, he hasn't put forward a technocratic candidate- maybe a Montek to replace Manmohan- and thus the Indian voter has a choice between Modi and Nobody. This is why the BJP will get a third term.
What is bizarre is that Gurcharan hasn't noticed that NATO directly or indirectly killed about 1.3 Muslims and displaced tens of millions more. That was genuine Islamophobia. You kill people you fear. India does not fear Muslims because it knows majorities can slaughter minorities using only kitchen knives or agricultural implements.
Critics are being silenced
No. They are paid a bit of money to make fools of themselves. It is counter-productive to attack Modi for being pro-Hindu when Hindus are the vast majority of the population.
and discourse on social media has become a weapon of the right.
Fuck off! Hindus are pushing back against Hindu-phobic nutters.
The atmosphere of hate has damaged India’s cherished secular ideal of sarva dharma samabhava,
Gandhi coined the term in 1930. But Gandhi failed. Gurcharan's parents had to run away from Lahore.
respect for all religions.
Also you should respect people who are raping and decapitating you more particularly if they are doing it in the name of religion. It is sad that Gurcharan's parents didn't remain in Pakistan. Still, if Rahul becomes PM, Gurcharan's kids or grandkids might get the chance to show proper respect to the jihadis who are chopping off their kaffir heads.
Although there has been no communal riot on the same scale as those in Gujarat in 2002 or in Delhi in 1984,
there never are any riots if the police shoot to kill. After the destruction of Babri Masjid, why did Delhi escape riots? The answer is that an IPS officer responded to the killing of one of his men by ordering his platoon to open fire killing a dozen or so Muslims. Suddenly, they became very quiet and peaceful and showed equal respect to all religions- or those whose adherents would slaughter them if they wagged their tail.
there have been many localised incidents of violence, not least against Muslims suspected of selling beef.
Bare possession of beef is a cognizable offence in some States. Nehru had to accept cow-protection as a directive principle in the Constitution. Incidentally, the founder of the INC, A.O Hume was a Vedantin who strongly advocated cow protection albeit for agronomic reasons.
Today, Indian liberals like me face a dilemma:
how to say something more stupid than you did in your last book?
not only do we have no one to vote for, but even if we did they would be unelectable.
Why? Is it because Rahul is a moon-calf? If that is your view, why not say so?
It can feel like a lonely road.
Gurcharan keeps trying to show equal respect for ISIS. But they tell kaffirs to fuck the fuck off.
I lost my friends on the right when I publicly condemned the riots in Gujarat
But it was Modi who presided over the Army action which put an end to those riots. Nobody gave a shit about what Gurcharan praised or condemned.
and criticised the banknote demonetisation in 2016 by the government,
Nothing wrong with that. Plenty of Gujjus did so to some better effect. The BJP was punished in the Legislative elections. However, so long as Rahul was the alternative, Modi remained safe.
led then, as now, by the Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp). I lost my friends on the left when I voted for the bjp in 2014.
Gurcharan had no friends on the Left. They considered him a bougie tool of an MNC. The other thing was, though Harvard educated, he wasn't really 'khandani'. His parents were middle class and ended up retiring to a Radhosami Ashram.
Sadly, I am the man in the middle, disappointed with both sides.
You are a useless tosser.
I cannot vote for the authoritarian, identity politics of the bjp.
Did you know Modi is a Hindu? That's totes triggering, dude! India should only be ruled by some nice foreign lady- preferably Lesbian.
But I also do not trust the redistributive, populist and statist economics of the opposition Congress party, ever ready to make a false trade-off between growth and equity.
Fuck off! Congress government just means weak, incompetent, corrupt coalition governments. There will be entitlement collapse as the country goes off a fiscal cliff.
Nor do I have much faith in the india alliance of opposition parties that was formed last year with Congress at its centre.
It is an opportunistic alliance. If it gains power, it will soon fall apart. India will have a succession of weak Prime Ministers. The problem is entitlement collapse. Once the small 'revdis' (freebies) currently being received disappear, there will be a wave of popular anger like nothing India has seen before.
Lamentably, in the past ten years the opposition has not come up with a single new idea to deal with most of India’s biggest issues: jobs, air quality, education and health care.
That's a good thing. The ideas of Indian politicians tend to be stupider than shit.
Handing out pocket money to women in Karnataka or free bus rides in Delhi will not cut it.
Nope. That's the only thing which works. Buying votes isn't necessarily pernicious. The problem is that if the State goes off a fiscal cliff, there will be entitlement collapse. That's when the shit really hits the fan.
The india alliance is incapable of doing the heavy lifting to take the economy to the next level.
So what? They just want to feather their own nests under feudalistic dynasties. The son and grandson of a former PM are now accused of rape and land grabbing on an industrial scale.
India may have become a fast-growing economy but it has still not created enough jobs.
Why? There hasn't been enough reform of land and labor laws. Also, much more trade reform is required. It is easy to see why India is so much behind Vietnam.
It has failed to create an industrial revolution. Manufacturing accounts for only 17% of gdp and India punches well below its weight when it comes to exports of industrial goods. It needs to find more productive jobs for the 45% of its workers stuck in agriculture.
Most farmers are net food purchasers not suppliers.
But how? It will require major reforms, including three that Narendra Modi’s bjp government tried but failed to enact because of the lack of opposition support:
there was pushback from the BJPs own Farming or Trade Union wing.
simplifying the acquisition of land for industrial purposes; modifying rigid labour laws to give companies flexibility to hire and lay off workers while protecting them from exploitation; and overhauling farm laws to improve productivity.
To be fair, this has to be done at the State level- as the Brits envisaged. The problem is that some States simply don't have the infrastructure in their hinterland. The result is that India has a huge migrant population. But, as COVID showed, they are highly vulnerable.
I trust the bjp to execute these reforms far more than the opposition—though the bjp, while a party of modernisation, is not an ideological reformer.
Only Rahul bleats about 'vichardhara' (ideology). The odd thing is that his cousin Varun has published a couple of hefty books on rural and urban India.
Liberals are partly to blame for this unhappy state of affairs.
They shat the bed in 1932 and have been irrelevant since. Rajaji's Swatantra party was casteist and feudal.
One reason is that liberalism in India remains an elite enterprise:
Sharad Joshi was popular with farmers in Maharashtra. Like Joshi, Charan Singh's son, Ajith, was a tech savvy phoren-returned politician. Could agriculturist-class leaders have pushed through a laissez faire agenda? No. The terms of trade move against agricultural produce and so farmers will always want subsidies. Also, their leaders prefer migrancy to development to keep their vote banks.
the rise of Hindu nationalism is partly a revolt against the English-speaking elite.
Nope. Plenty of English speaking elitists are devout Hindus or Muslims or Sikhs or whatever. Jinnah was a Liberal with a secular life-style. He created Pakistan, just as Nehru created a centralized Hindu state. Sadly, since Jinnah's daughter married a Christian Parsi and remained in India, only the latter could found a dynasty.
Another reason is that no liberal political leader has had a serious dialogue with tradition. Mahatma Gandhi, alas, died too soon.
He was 78!
He had been able to translate the liberal ideas of liberty and equality into the civilisational language of dharma
Actually, the Brits had done that. Gandhi & Co learnt about 'dharma' from books written by Whites in English. The East India Company created a secular state. The Indians wanted no such thing.
—his moral principles—and thus capture the hearts and minds of the masses.
Muslim masses didn't kill people like Gurcharan. His parents were wrong to run away from Lahore.
And yet, despite this gloomy situation, I remain optimistic about liberalism’s future in India.
Because you are as stupid as shit.
India’s civilisational temper is open, inclusive and liberal.
Which is why foreigners could turn up and fuck it in its ass.
In a land of 330m gods where no god can afford to feel jealous,
Why not? In a land of 1.4 billion people, if I can afford to feel jealous of Kejriwal- because he can get annoying women beaten up- why should gods or demons or fairies or pixies feel they are too poor to indulge in envy?
and where people are argumentative,
i.e. Bengal
narrow Hindu nationalism is unlikely to have a long shelf life.
That's true enough. Sooner or later, West Bengal will become Muslim majority and therefore less argumentative.
Liberalism will win out in the end.
Because Hinduism will disappear from India they way it disappeared from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and, sooner or later, Sri Lanka.
Gurcharan doesn't understand that he hates Hinduism- which he is welcome to do- but this hatred poses an existential threat to people of his heritage. The sensible thing to do, for self-hating Hindus, is to emigrate to some nice place still ruled by White peeps. Alternatively, why not convert now before the knife is at your throat? The problem is that conversion is not enough. You must get busy slaughtering kaffirs to win acceptance from the jihadis. Still, it warms the cockles of my heart to think of Gurcharan, the student of John Rawls and Martha Nussbaum- abjuring Liberalism as, towards the end of his lonely road, he arrives at the Damascus of a revived Caliphate.
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