Indian liberals on right road but wrongly- apart

• We need only look to recent intellectual history for examples where the articulation of ideas can change the course of history. At the end of the Second World War, when ideas of central planning and the primacy of government as a means to manage the economy were ubiquitous, Friederich Hayek, the great libertarian philosopher and economist, assembled a group of like-minded thinkers and founded the Mont Pelerin Society, with the stated goal of countering ideas of collectivism with a renewed emphasis on individual liberty and market-based economics. Hayek made a point then that resonates strikingly with India today: although he decried the ideas of members of the left, he praised them for carrying conviction in those ideas, and in articulating them in a fashion comprehensible to the general populace. Thus, he suggested, they appropriated the moral high ground, a space that had been vacated by a right that had failed to make its case in such a compelling fashion.

Even more crisply asks Vivek H Dehejia in the January issue of Pragati-The Indian National Interest Review (PDF).

• Today, we are just at the beginning of this contest of ideas in India. The consequences will be momentous. Will we remain in thrall to the remnants of a defunct socialist ideology, and plod along with piecemeal and limited economic reforms without a sound intellectual rationale? Or will we boldly strike out on another path? Let the battle be joined.