PS Sivaswamy Aiyer: Forgotten Indian Liberal – Part II

This is my send piece on the great Classical Liberal of India PS Sivasamy Aiyer whose life and works are forgotten in his home country. He had interesting thoughts and views on Nehru and M.K Gandhi.

I conclude the piece with the below para:

"PS Sivaswamy Aiyer had maintained an extraordinary independent thinking and intellectual integrity throughout his public life. He was profound thinker and contributor towards the building of constitutional liberalism conceived in liberal principles. Thus, there is enormous scope to rewrite the history of pre-independent India with recounting the monumental contribution of liberal thinkers like Sivasamy Aiyer who have contributed significantly to the Indian liberalism." 

MK Gandhi@150

Author Ramachandra Guha has given a long interview with a list of five important books about Mahatma Gandhi's life and works in UK, SA and India. Though, the list of book and the interview is good narrative is good but I would like to add in the list the tiny book based on speeches of Osho who was close friend of Gandhi's eldest Son Harilal Gandhi. Also Osho has spoken about the other side of Gandhi's life and works which is unknown among masses.

I am not against Gandhi's life and works but I am very curies to know his entire life in totality. I am not that person to believe only one side story of any human being living or lived or will be living on this earth. Human life is so complicated with wire of millions things but one need not worry about all of things about a man or a woman.

Certainly, it is very strange to celebrate about one person who was never a benefactor for long march of attaining independence life India's freedom. There are whole lot of others who were equally contributed to the freedom struggles. I mean the entire works of first generation of Indian classical liberals (1850-1915) were ignored in the Independent India. This is the period where Gandhi was not in India fully. The great works of Ranade, Gokhale, Srinivasa Sastri, Tilak, etc.

Oshos views on Gandhi are at 1, 2, 3, 4.

1909-2019: Remember ONE NEW PERSON on Independence Day

Friends,

Yesterday was a important day for all of us. Its our Independence Day!
I have a bit of different take for this year's Independence Day.

Let's pledge each one of us to the truth that our Nation attained freedom because of the tireless life of millions of people who fought for our well being, safety, peace and prosperity. And we should not merely pay homage to only one or two who has been branded mistakenly by many in the contemporary world.

So, my humble request to all of you is to remember at least ONE NEW PERSON whom you never heard till now but he or she would have given their life to our beloved country's independence.

Past one month, I have been reading the works of several people who have done great jobs securing the constitutional methods of approach to attaining freedom from evils regimes in British India.

When I say constitution, do not mistaken me only with B R Ambedkar or the galaxy of people in the drafting committee or panels. He did great works no doubt about it but who else have done equally great works is our duty to remember faithfully that they don't merely pass away from our dutiful memory.

The independent India's intellectuals have done great injustice to many great classical liberal thinkers of first half of twentieth century. These classical liberals were the main freedom fighters unbelievably working closely with British Empire before the hegemony of Gandhi and Nehru period.

Indeed, there is quite striking similarity between the current year 2019 and 1909. For first time, the Indian National Congress was split on major reform policies evolved during 1908-1909 into two groups: main leaders were called extremists vs liberals. This split in major reform policies mindset and the ideology still hunts us in today's contemporary public policy making whether it is Congress or BJP or any other family run State level parties.

So, there is a amount of rational way of bringing reforms and policies through constitutional methods instead of protests, fasts, strikes, blacking public vehicles etc. The constitutional approach to protest for policy reforms was adopted by Dadabhai, Ranade, Gokhale, VS Srinivasa Sastri, Ambedkar, etc. The fasts protests etc were adopted by Tilak, Pal, Rai, Gandhi, Nehru, etc. Is these extremists leaders who captured the mainstream political power by ignoring the voices of the liberals scholars.

But the contributions to freedom struggles by Ranade, Gokhale and Sastri, etc. were completely ignored by every section of the society. I find this as ridiculous to continue for several generations.

The entire gamut of public policy making minds in India since the independence are the second rate category with protests, strikes etc without any differences in political parties.

We need to come out of this crude mind set of wild act without any logical reasoning on subjects. There is great amount of tragedies done through the act of strikes, protests, etc. both morally and psychically in the name of one community or segments of population or particular region.

Therefore, do take few minutes to ask your parents, grandparents, friends etc to remember the freedom fighters in your locality and also try to know some of the forgotten great souls of our freedom movements. 

Jai Hind,
Chandra....

Indian Government Budget and Others

India's latest central government's budget is the last budget for the decade first two decades of 21st century. First time, a woman Finance Minister presented without many jargans of numbers and percentages!

The below are some interesting article on the budget with new ideas:

Is the Budget WorthWhile by economist Ashok Desai

No East Asia Economic Model please, India has its own unique model of economic growth with always confusing the best thinkers

Why no more Congress please

Chakrayya was suppose to be first President of India in Independent India.

Budget 2019-20: Right Direction, But Where’s The Money?

"It’s because they are smart people who understand well that elections have nothing to do with solving people’s problems. On the contrary, it is elections that create problems for people. In fact, elections are the biggest threat to human life and well-being — bigger than air pollution, road accidents and cancer."

M K Gandhi and F A Hayek needed for New India

Sanjeev Sabhlok has very interesting article wherein he says beautifully 

"Hayek’s best-known paper – the exhilarating The Use of Knowledge in Society – expounds an extraordinarily complex theory in plain English. Till the end of his life, such as with his last book, “The Fatal Conceit”, Hayek continued to show socialists that they do not have, cannot have, the knowledge necessary for a society to succeed. His Nobel lecture was beautifully entitled, The Pretence of Knowledge.

But socialists are oblivious to his insights. Full of the fatal conceit he cautioned against, confident in their pretence of knowledge and ability to plan for the “masses”, they reject Hayek without having read him. A senior former IAS officer told me that Hayek is irrelevant since he advocated an unbridled free-market. Such socialists give Hayek a bad rap without having read him, just as Gandhi rejected Adam Smith without reading his work." More here.

As per MKG’s understanding, Indian villages were once small self-sustaining economies/communities where a social system ensured “equitable” distribution of resources and earnings making poverty an alien concept.

Mohandas Gandhi Before India-I

The Man Who Would Be Mahatma

Gandhi's formative years

Gandhi in waiting and the flaw at the heart of a saintly mythology

Gandhi's 100 volumes and 45,000 books

Indian politicians, parties don’t do justice to Gandhi’s legacy: Guha the real Gandhi got lost. Guha, too, fails to discover him.

Mohandas Gandhi Before India

A new book has been published yet again on Mohandas Gandhi and his role in the world before coming back to India. I have expected for long time this book to come not because of who writes it but because of the kind of material/information used or studied to write the new book.

In my view, it is Mohandas Gandhi whose work helped Mr Guha to shift from hard-core marxist (no capital 'M' please!) and deadly socialist man. As far as the life of Mohandas Gandhi is concerned, Mr.Guha does a great job in the book.

Here are very interesting interviews/excerpts from the new book. I say, interesting because the prevailing time and polity and politics in India makes it more interesting to know things differently and usefully.

Why India needs Gandhi, the champion of downtrodden

Ramachandra Guha on ‘Gandhi Before India’

Gandhi before India

The African Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi's early career

Several Accidents Helped Make Gandhi

Gandhi at 45 Before India

‘Gandhi Is Alive Because He Still Makes People Angry’

Mahatma Gandhi - Experiments with eating

India-"genuine union"

"in Mahatma Gandhi we had our Lincoln; in B.R. Ambedkar, our King. Nehru made better speeches than either but, in hindsight, fell short in both political grandeur and moral stature.". Mre here.

"Our stupidity is entirely self-inflicted. Our state thinks of the poor as objects of charity, as if they have no agency of their own."

"Bharati’s Kuyil Paattu doesn’t offer lessons. It’s simply a remarkable illustration of the poet’s private voice."

A Man with Words

I always loved to read and ponder the autobiography or biography of any person in this world. The most loved part of the (auto)biography is related to their early life in outside school as well as their failures in work life after becoming an adult.

Here is a one by Kalam himself from his new book.

So far, I read (auto)biography of Kalam, Rajaji, K.Kamaraj, Swami Sivananda, Gandhi, Vivekananda,Subramania Bharati etc.

Rural Gandhi vs Urban Ambedkar

From Niranjan Rajadhyaksha's article in today's Livemint:

• Indian public policy suffers from a well-known Gandhian bias, with a pious belief in rural development even though development patterns the world over show that countries have emerged out of poverty through urbanization. B.R. Ambedkar, who had a very direct experience of social oppression, had little patience with the glorification of village life: “The love of the intellectual Indian for the village community is of course infinite, if not pathetic… What is a village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow mindedness and communalism?”
• But what is less well known is that Ambedkar was a trained economist who argued in one of his earliest papers, written in 1918, that India needed to help people migrate from agriculture to industry: “A large agricultural population with the lowest proportion of land in actual cultivation means that a large part of the agricultural population is superfluous and idle…this labour when productively employed will cease to live by predation as it does today, and will not only earn its keep but will give us surplus; and more surplus means more capital. In short, strange as it may seem, industrialization of India is the soundest remedy for the agricultural problems of India”.
• There has been a robust debate in India on the relative merits of the Gandhian versus Ambedkarite visions on the direction the country should take in the future. The varying demographic trends in modern India—especially the rapid decline in rural population growth in some states—could create disagreements in the political system that in some ways echo the old debates on a rural versus urban future.

Interesting reading

Why Indian economy slowed? 

Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar had cautioned us in his speech on November 4, 1948, delivered in the Constituent Assembly that: “The form of the administration must be appropriate to and in the same sense as the form of the Constitution ... [It] is perfectly possible to pervert the Constitution, without changing its form by merely changing the form of the administration and to make it inconsistent and opposed to the spirit of the Constitution … Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it.” More here.

"No one from Gujarat’s eastern counterpart — Bengal — has given either the chief minister of Gujarat or the chairman of Reliance Industries Limited any epithet of respect."

"A laissez faire economy is characterized by the absence of non-market pressures such as taxes, subsidies, tariffs, though the very definition of a free market economy has been the subject of vociferous debate. In a free market/economy, individuals are free to contract, where the only regulations, in theory, would be to safeguard against coercion and theft. Certain economists have postulated that competition would thrive in a free market economy, perhaps even through a praxeological approach. However, given the different theoretical models of free-market economies and the opposing practical reality(ies); class differences, income inequities and the resultant dominating powers do allow for a powerful class to emerge and skew market conditions through monopolies and the abuse of dominant positions." More here.

Must Read

Re-imagining trade unions

Where have all the subsidies gone?

"God may commit mistakes but no government official does so"

Between Gandhi and Ambedkar

True to M K Gandhi

"India’s history books in the past sixty years have been written by Marxists, and Gandhi’s views have been distorted to fit in with the Marxist agenda. These books suppress Gandhi’s views on Marxism and socialism and instead present a sanitized version of history with Gandhi merely as a hero to be worshiped before invoking the doctrine of socialism. Instead of deifying Gandhi as a Mahatma and blindly worshiping him, Indians would do well to objectively examine his works and understand his political views." More here.

Obsession of polity fraud

Professor Indiresan wrote this a decade ago but true to this day:

• Our present-day leaders no longer encourage sincere effort the way Gandhi did. They take their cue from Nehru about whom it was said that nothing grows under a banyan tree. Nehru stood tall mainly by making everyone around him small. Present-day leaders have become a caricature of Nehru: they surround themselves with pygmies only. They clip the wings of any that show promise to rise to great heights.

An earnest and sincere engagement with Ambedkar means we rethink the way our society is organised.

Interesting reading

Manish on rightly asks why there is no narrative for youth in India in the contemporary political setups. The following para is really suburb:

• The garibi hatao card does not work because voters are jaded by the lack of execution of promises since that slogan was coined 40 years ago. The free electricity card does not work because it leads to no power, which infuriates the people further. The reservation card does not work because we have reached the limits of confiscating capacity in hiring, education and promotions. The big state that is financed with deficits is discredited because the economic mayhem of the past few years shows that there is no magical “multiplier effect”, and deficit financing leads to inflation with no boost in output. The freebies card is less effective because it has to be given to everybody, since fixing the plumbing to target its distribution is so difficult to achieve. The majboori card is less potent because of prosperity; it is much harder to get people to migrate to big cities than it should be. The foreign enemy card does not work because Pakistan is imploding and we are hardly surrounded, like Israel is. The mystique of the incumbent does not work because the 24-hour news cycle encourages breathless breaking news over reflection. The “young blood” card does not work because the only pathways in politics are geriatric. The corruption card does not work because, um, if everybody lives in glass houses, everybody needs to answer the bell. 

"India can learn from Brazil’s Bolsa Familia and China’s Gansu Programme to make refinements to its MGNREGA scheme."

Professor Indiresan on "There is a proverb in Kannada language, ootathannicche; nota pararicche(meals according to personal taste; dress according to the taste of others). On that basis, the present day youth are trying to please their own kind even if it is against the wishes of their elders"

Perceptive Indians

The current debate on "Indians great, greater, greatest" is very symbolic one. I say symbolic because the present set up of politico-economics is such that the media is able to figure out clearly where they can reap maximum masses trap in to it. All for that shame sake, Nothing else.

However, what attracted me in the long article by Ramachandra Guha in today's The Hindu is the following line. Perhaps a happy line.

"Nehru, on the other hand, is a figure of disinterest and derision in India today," 

M K Gandhi, Patel and Modi Land

My recent visit was very fruitful. However, I could not come to a point to offer a sort of comments or observation here in this blog about the relationship between Gujarat Chief Minister Mr Narendra Modi and the clash among Hindu Muslim. But one thing is sure for the doing business in Gujarat the governance improvement is unbelievable.


Whatever may happened in the past whether it is a earthquake or clash between Muslims and Hindus in Gujarat. The story about the land of wealth creation is here to rule out. This wonderful essay about the raise of Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji. 


Here is anther old article about Mr Modi in The Atlantic. 


Given the facts about the life of Mr Modi and his conviction at least I am not surprised to see this news "Mr. Modi was the third Gujarati to make it to the cover of the prestigious magazine after Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel."

Self-Talk at travel and land of M K Gandhi

If I was asked to go by sarker Airline I felt every time how I am going to manage the shoddy people who continues to behave "mai baab sarker" while serving the customer. This was greatly cooled by two beautiful kids (less than 6 year old) during my recent visit to Hyderabad. These kids were asking all kinds of nice questions.

Another painstaking journey, yet again by sarkar airline today morning. Unlike my usual practice of self musing, I was not really  musing myself on anything. In fact, I had forgotten the fact that I am coming after 6 years to the land of the great man who was born on this land and lifted the ignorance of world masses.

Quite surprisingly, how the time takes me to places where I have been put up today! I was not determined to write this blog from such a important place any time soon or my life time at all. Yes, I am writing this from the very place where the great Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi faced the trial of sedition in the Central Hall of the Government Circuit House at Ahmedabad on the 18th of March in 1922 under "section 124A of the Indian Penal Code" and and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. Read the full story from here. From today's context the relevant of sedition and need for reform.

Remember words of B R Ambedkar and M K Gandhi on 'Arms'

Great free market liberal economist B R Ambedkar said:

"To deny freedom of opportunity, to deny freedom to acquire knowledge, to deny the right to arms is a most cruel wrong. Its result to......... .and man."

From the article "Society must arm itself to counter communistterror" by a friend Arvind:

• Communists pose the greatest threat to freedom and property rights. Communists also oppose the right to own arms which are necessary to defend oneself and one’s property. 
• While Sri Lanka showed tremendous resolve and smashed the LTTE which described itself as a Marxist-Leninist outfit, Nepal meekly capitulated to the Maoists. In India, the Naxalite problem persists because home minister Chidambaram responds to bombings with warnings as though the Naxalites would tremble at the prospect of receiving a strongly worded letter of reprimand.
• Chidambaram also reveals remarkable political naiveté when he claims that poverty causes communist terrorism. 
• Both the home ministry and the Election Commission display their incompetence by recognising the CPI(ML)-L as a political party despite the Naxalite group flouting the Representation of People’s Act. 
• The constitution of the CPI(M) too uses inflammatory language and states its aim as “the establishment of the state of dictatorship of the proletariat.” It also calls for the recruitment of “militants” and prescribes a “revolutionary outlook” for its leadership. 
• Carter and his Democratic Party actively interfere in global politics and lobby for the Marxist-Leninists in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, East Timor and South Sudan, places where American churches collude with the communists. These communist terrorists can be defeated only by using arms.
• A few months back, the Madras High Court ruled that citizens had the right to use arms to defend themselves. This ruling should be welcomed as an armed populace will make India as peaceful as Switzerland which has a high rate of gun ownership. In an armed society, operations like the Mumbai terror attacks will last just a few minutes.
• Arms were easily accessible to Indians before the British disarmed the country. Even priests used firearms to protect temples.
• The people must once again arm themselves and remember Gandhi’s words on the ban on weapons, “Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.” 

Thanks 2011!

So, the year 2011 is coming to end. I thank you all for being part of this Blog. Your interest in this Blog encourages me a lot to do more. Of course, more justly. The purpose of this particular blog post is to recount and record my publications 2011 both online and printed versions.

For me, this year has not only opened a new window of opportunities but also helped me to communicate with others by writings less (un)known ideas from my readings on Indian liberalism. What I have done in the last 6 or 7 months is a piece of my vast readings. I know it sounds big. Given the vastness of the present day ignorance I have to say that.

First Visit to USA:

I had faced all kinds of problems while I was arranging the necessary things in order. Often I felt helpless and therefore I thought I should give up my try. But many friends and others like minded persons have encouraged me lot to try my level best. They all did not only constantly but quite honestly. I thank all of them.

After I returned from Mises Institute's Austrian Scholars Conference 2011, I got opportunities to write as well as to give lectures on my paper presented in the Conference. My paper was on "Was B R Ambedkar a free market economist?"

Talks and Lectures:

I am very much excited to share with you my talks/lectures. I have written my speeches for all the invited talks and lectures! Among them, the most enjoyed lecture was the one which I addressed 50 plus 2011 LAMP Fellows of PRS. It was one hour lunch on lecture. The following are the talks and lectures list of places I was invited to share the findings of my research on Ambedkar's free market economics:

1. On April 29, 2011 I gave a very brief talk at 'CCS Chintan' organised by The Centre for Civil Society, New Delhi.


2. On May 14, 2011 I gave one hour long lecture (Tamil) in Chennai, organised by The New Horizon Media.


3. On May 29, 2011 I gave brief talk at National Conference on "Shala- India’s National Interest: Towards Shared Visions" in Pune, organised by The Takshashila Institution 

4. I addressed 50 plus 2011 Legislative Assistants to Members of Parliament (LAMP) Fellows, on “Some Aspects of Dalit Issues in India” on July 13, 2011, Constitution Club, organised by PRS Legislative Research, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Popular Articles Publication:


The following articles were published in printed versions with large circulation:


1.Ambedkar, the forgotten free-market economist, Pragati: The Indian National Interest Review, April 14, 2011 (available online freely pdf)

2. The Untouchable Case for Indian Capitalism, The Wall Street Journal Asia, May 31, 2011 (available online freely here)

3.Gandhi, the Liberal, Pragati: The Indian National Interest Review, July 2011 (available online freely pdf)

4.Population in the 21^st Century-The Ultimate Resource, If Only They are Skilled, The India Economy Review-Great Indian Dream, IIPM Think Tank, August, 2011 (available online freely here)

5.B.R. Shenoy's Forgotten Voice of Dissent (co-authored), Forbes India Magazine, July 29, 2011 (available online freely here)

6. Growth Trends in Services Sector (co-authored), Yojana, Vol.55, September 2011 (Abstract available here)

The following articles were published in popular online run by classical liberal Institutions:


1. India’s Great Free Market Economist, The Ludwig Von Mises Institute, July 5, 2011 USA (available online freely here)


2. Twenty Years of Economic Reforms to the Free Market India (co-authored), published in French Journal, In Eco Veritas, August 31, 2011 (available online freely here)


3.20 years since India’s economic reforms (co-authored), November 28, 2011, The Cobden Centre, UK  (available online freely here)


A token of gratitude:

In general, I wanted to thank in a big way to my friends of classical liberals for their continuous support: Vipin, Nitin Pai, Toby, Harsh Gupta, Raj Cherubal, Abheek, Ghanshyam, Anand, Parth, Chris, Sanjeev Sabhlok, Satya, Satyajit Dey and Dhanu.

Come 2012!

For 2012, I have already penned few equally interesting pieces for publication. Hope all goes well with the time to come and the same I will share with you all in due to time.

Thank you all,