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Friday, January 16, 2026
HomeOpinionIndian Liberals Matter

Indian Liberals Matter

A shame-faced modesty pervades 1991 reforms. This is strange and inappropriate: Ashok Desai

Liberty is not accepted in India as the ultimate goal of political systems. This is why, for instance, there is so much paranoia about foreign investments, wrote economist Ashok V Desai in 1995.

No constitutional provision deserves repeal more than the one imposing Hindi: P Kodanda Rao

The article to adopt Hindi as the official language of the Union was moved by . Gopalaswami Iyengar. The fact that he was from Madras has been exploited to assert that non-Hindi members welcomed Hindi, wrote P Kodanda Rao in 1988.

Free-enterprise features are reshaping Russia’s socialist institutions: AD Shroff

Just as the economic waste of centralised planning is being realised, the failure on the agricultural front is also making a dent on doctrinaire thinking in the Soviet Union, AD Shroff wrote in 1964.

India’s labour policy left it unable to compete with other eastern economies: Nani A Palkhivala

Liberty without accountability is the freedom of the fool. Our concept of freedom will remain impoverished until it is deepened by liberal education, wrote Nani A Palkhivala in 1995.

Capitalism is the bedrock of all economic progress. Socialism is a parasite: KD Valicha

Today is the anti-socialist era. Libertarianism is fighting; dedicated with all its power and love of liberty. It does not matter whether it wins in the political sphere, wrote KD Valicha in 1957.

Population causes poverty is the devil’s philosophy. It causes prosperity: Sauvik Chakraverti

Crowded cities are rich because there is greater division of labour. The extent of the division of labour depends on the size of the market, wrote Sauvik Chakraverti in 2002.

Nothing suits dictatorship more than a subservient judiciary: Justice HR Khanna

The totalitarian states indeed are never tired of claiming a legal basis for their action and are too eager to make use of conventional legal institutions to further their ends, said Justice HR Khanna in 1980.

The Press is not artillery — neither for the ruling party nor the Opposition: Sachin Sen

The Press in a liberal democracy has to be a forum for the expression of different points of view. It must not suppress, taint or adulterate news, wrote Sachin Sen in 1960.

Hitlerite vegetarianism is not virtue. India’s food debates need more science, less sentiment

Vegetarianism is as much a fad as prohibition. To say that man by nature is vegetarian is baseless and misguiding, wrote Tahir Siddiqui in 1953.

If fundamental right to property can be taken away, so can all the others: AG Mulgaokar

If this step even partially achieves its desired results, there will be so much dislocation in the country’s economic structure as to prove a national calamity, advocate AG Mulgaokar wrote in 1969.

On Camera

Trump tariffs, import dependence are holding back America’s manufacturing renaissance

Better tax, regulatory, and monetary policy should indeed provide a tailwind for manufacturing, but the sector will probably continue to struggle.

Designed to oversee corn & crude futures, Wall Street regulator grapples with crypto, sports gambling

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is on the precipice of gaining new crypto oversight as lawmakers continue to negotiate major legislation.

The curious case of Pakistan’s JF-17 ‘orders’

Pakistan lacks capacity to deliver aircraft at pace suggested by its claimed contracts as it depends on China for avionics, electronic warfare, weapons, and on Russia for engines. 

Thank you Donald Trump, again. India now has reason to shed fear of trade deals and risky reform

UK, EFTA already in the bag and EU on the way, many members of RCEP except China signed up, and even restrictions on China being lifted, India has changed its mind on trade.