The spectre of BJP

Why I Am a Liberal

A Manifesto for Indians Who Believe in Individual Freedom

Sagarika Ghose

Penguin/Viking, 

397 pages, Rs 599

Sagarika Ghose’s book is described as “A manifesto for Indians who believe in individual freedom”. Apart from a longish introduction, there are five chapters — Liberal Patriot, Liberal Hindu, Liberal Thinker, Liberal Dissenter and Liberal Woman. Each chapter has a sub-title that reveals what this book is about. Respectively, these sub-titles are: Why the liberal Indian is a greater patriot than the ‘Hindutva nationalist’; Why the true Hindu is always a liberal and why the liberal Hindu is a better Hindu than the political Hindu; Why the liberal who believes in enhancing the power of the individual is a better democrat than the liberal who believes in increasing the power of the government or the state; Why the liberal dissenter is not a traitor and why free-thinking intellectuals are crucial for a nation’s progress; and Why the liberal must always oppose those who discriminate against and stereotype women, crush their freedoms and force them to be caricatures of an imagined ‘Indian culture’. As these sub-titles reveal, and as the pages elucidate, from the author’s perspective, the spectre haunting liberal India is the Narendra Modi government and the Bharatiya Janata Party, though she makes both sound like the James Bond SPECTRE. Wearing biases on the sleeve is good for transparency, though.

We should start with some definition of liberalism.  “There is little agreement on what liberalism exactly means, although all liberals are united in their primary belief in limited government, autonomous institutions, individual freedom and the rule of law…It took three years of debates in the Constituent Assembly, each Article tortuously debated, for us Indians to gain our liberal, individual-rights-centred Constitution.” 

That 1950 Constitution has been amended several times.  With such admiration for that individual-rights-centred Constitution, I would have expected some discussion, if not of all amendments, at least the First Amendment, especially because it was about “abuse of freedom of speech and expression”, consequent to the 1950 case, Romesh Thapar  versus  State of Madras. Indeed, a liberal should object to all aspects of First Amendment — Article 19(1)(a), 19(1)(g), 19(6) and 31.  The only reference I could find to First Amendment was the following:  “Interestingly, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Vajpayee’s precursor in the Hindutva nationalist movement and the founder of the Jana Sangh, can be called a liberal in some respects as he had argued strongly against Nehru’s first amendment of the Constitution, which restricted freedom of speech.” So, Syama Prasad Mukherjee can be called “a liberal in some respects”.  There is no such hesitation about Jawaharlal Nehru or B R Ambedkar.  “India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, differed with Gandhi on the role of the government.  Yet, he was a quintessential social liberal and constitutional democrat,” Ghose writes. And “B R Ambedkar, draftsman of the Constitution, was also a quintessential liberal.”  

Not only did Syama Prasad Mukherjee oppose the First Amendment, both Nehru and Ambedkar supported it.  Interestingly, Ghose doesn’t mention this, perhaps because that would have invalidated the simplified spectre proposition.  (The spelling should be Syama Prasad, not Shyama Prasad.  I don’t understand why she got that wrong, just as I don’t understand why she got a few minor words in Tagore’s  “Hey more chitto”  wrong.)

Though Ghose pegs the book to the present government, blamed for an increase in illiberalism, let’s focus on that core liberal agenda, as defined in the book —limited government, autonomous institutions, individual freedom and rule of law.  She says, “In an earlier time, a socialist-based ruling party under Indira Gandhi had launched an all-out drive for making India more socialist with campaigns like the 20 Point Programme.”  The 20 Point Programme was initially launched in 1975 and has been restructured thrice since then.  Per se, it is difficult to see how the original 20 Point Programme incorporated socialism, as opposed to other policies that drove the agenda.  Be that as it may, as a liberal, I ought to object to Section 29A(5) of the Representation of the People Act (1951) that requires all political parties registered in India to be socialist and to the 1988 amendment that introduced this clause. I ought to object to the 1976 amendment to the Preamble, making India socialist. “The public-sector-guided economy was the dominant belief in Nehru’s time,” she writes. As a liberal, I ought to applaud B R Shenoy’s minute of dissent in 1955 and condemn his subsequent ostracisation, symbolic of a threat to autonomous institutions.  

“Rule of law” is a handy expression, but it is conditional on the law and no legislation is ideology-neutral. Any statute is a curb on individual freedom, more so since statutes can be coloured by ideology.  Imports of Alexander Campbell’s 1958 book, The Heart of India  were banned in 1959.  As a liberal, do I support the ban?  As a liberal, do I support the relevant section of the Customs Act that enables government to impose such a ban?  There can be an intrinsic incompatibility between a liberal position and the rule of law. Any liberal manifesto should discuss such issues.  But this book doesn’t.  Nor are the instances I have cited (Representation of the People Act, Preamble, Shenoy, import bans) mentioned. That’s because this well-written book’s implicit title is, “Why I am against this government”.