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On the 19th April 2025’s National Interest, Shekhar Gupta ji, the venerable editor-in-chief made an astute argument for the need for an alternate brand of political narrative that provides alternatives to Mandir politics as well as Socialism and Social Justice narratives. In that stimulating episode, he talks about how Millei brand Libertarianism might be a good alternative, packaged in a neo-Swatantra Party line. I write this piece to discuss the pros and cons of that suggestion. While Swatantra Party and classical Libertarianism do present themselves as theoretical alternatives to prevailing political rhetoric, the biggest challenge to a political line of thought that extols individualism, liberty, and private enterprise is the fabric of cultural India which is primarily collectivist as a society.
To elaborate, we are entrenched in systems of collectivist enslavement right from bahubali politics to feudal caste enmities. But the divisions are not just cultural, but thanks to multi-decade socialist rule, and given the size and demographic numbers of the country, we simply are too big to reinvent ourselves as a decentralised polity without risking disorder, bordering balkanization. Having said that, there is a lot of merit to exploring beyond the tired old methods of dividing the population based on language, caste, and religion that current political parties employ in different forms and scales, and to varying degrees of subtlety.
A decentralisation without devolution of informal power from the bahubalis to general public representatives, a devolution of power without active and informed participation of public in general political workings of a decentralised form of government can only lead to chaos and anarchy. Needless to say, our neighbourhood wouldn’t allow a peaceful transition in that direction. One neighbour believes that we need to be cut to the right size to be manageable, another neighbour is too big to benevolently let us transition. The international strategic space does not allow for an intellectually argued Libertarian objective for the society.
Does that mean, I suggest we simply give up on the idea? No, certainly not. However, there might be some value in examining ways for Indianising Libertarianism. Making this political thought less of a ‘hard-decentralised’ Right, and trying to identify a form that accommodates our caste and multi-ethnic realities. Try to identify how a centralised welfarism can coexist with decentralised public service delivery. Try to understand how a centralised national security narrative can be decoupled from obsessive protectionism.
Indira Gandhi’s criticism of Swatantra Party, which happened to be also Nehru’s reason to dismiss it, was that it was a party of princes. While the ideas were logically sound, the nation couldn’t resonate with it due to realities of what ‘party of princes’ meant in lived experiences of millions of proletariat. A country where we still need to provide subsidised food for millions cannot be a country that can simply adopt an inalienable individualistic libertarian philosophy.
Then the question emerges, of what it means to hold private property as sacred when one might also want to provide welfare for those who need it?
Question also emerges of how might national security and national interests function while the political system also decentralises taxation and creates room for localised development based on direct democracy principles?
One needs to perhaps also solve for a society that needs healthcare, education, and skill development while allowing for private businesses to prosper without obstacles and red tape.
One might also need to reconcile the civilizational wounds of a country whose culture is built around the collective memory of invasions and exploitation, while also trying to disassociate the church (mandir majorly in our case) from the state.
Lastly, one might also need to talk without reservation against socialist affirmative action while also identifying methods to deliver caste justice, or even work towards eradicating caste from our society.
This extremely challenging tango between Social Justice and Libertarian goals is where, perhaps, a form of alternate political thought exists that could challenge the prevailing strains from both the powerful blocs.
The challenges to forming this type of political ideology and letting it gain traction in India is from all stakeholders. The political parties, the intelligentsia that offer ideological justification to the political parties, the public that supply validation by exercising their suffrage, the bureaucratic machine that regulates the society, and the activism that informs the society, all seem to be firmly in their corners of the boxing ring.
Each stakeholder from our society is either too entrenched in socialist ideologies, or a right wing reaction to those socialist ideologies to consider finding an acceptable marriage between the two poles – which perhaps fits the narratives and lived realities of most Indians more truly than each ideology individually ever can represent. Given such a diagnosis, does space truly exist for something new to blossom?
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.