Make India the Soné Ki Chidiya that it was!

All of us (at least most people that I know) engage in many discussions/debates everyday on the sad state of governance in India. We keep hoping for “new” political leadership to bring about a change, but we need to remember that fundamental and lasting change will come only via direct political involvement by EVERY Indian citizen. At the heart of every single challenge we face in India is an ineffective, incompetent and corrupt political leadership – and CHANGE will come only when one is ready to help build and offer a credible alternative to the existing political leadership. Clearly, POLITICS is at the heart of everything!

Once we get past (I truly hope most of us have!) this initial hurdle of understanding the need for political reform comes the second and MORE IMPORTANT question – how can I do my bit towards bringing about this change that I desire for India? Apart from the innumerable activities I could list down in response to that, the simplest and quickest way is by donating money to initiatives working on political reforms.

Putting my money into something I believe in, although don’t fully engage in, is definitely not easy; but fact is that monetary contribution is one of the most widely used methods of self-gratification (the innumerable social charities which thrive on individual donations bear testament to this).

With the above in mind, I would like to introduce a movement for national political reform – Soné Ki Chidiya – launched on 26 January 2013 by a few well-meaning individuals. Soné Ki Chidiya (SKC) has been converted into a Federation in March 2013, and a number of organisations have agreed to join it at the National Reform Summit organised at Haridwar from 5-8 April 2013. The Summit was organised with the intent of bringing various political formations under a common umbrella and agreeing upon one common Vision. Minutes of the Summit can be found here.

The SKC Federation now has a national office in Delhi, and many individuals are actively volunteering time to get a number of activities up and running – policy committees/ PILs, etc. The Freedom Team of India (FTI) acting as Secretary to SKC, is actively seeking monetary contributions towards funding this movement and towards reaching out widely to the citizens of India. Details are provided here.

PLEASE ALSO WIDELY SHARE THIS LINK: http://freedomteam.in/blog/content/please-help-kick-start-sone-ki-chidiya-movement-at-least-rs-5-lakhs-needed

Your small contribution will help the team reach out as widely as possible. As always, BE the change you want to see, and help spread the word!

My eulogy to Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s prime minister from 1979 to 1990, died in London on 8 April 2013, at the age of 87. Several prime ministers, as The Economist says, have occupied 10 Downing Street for as long as, or even longer than, Margaret Thatcher. But Lady Thatcher, Britain’s only woman prime minister, was the first occupant of Number 10 to become an “-ism” in her lifetime. She has left behind a legacy and a brand of ideologies and politics commonly known as “Thatcherism“, which can be far from ignored in today’s world.

The Iron Lady, as she was known (and quite inappropriately depicted by Meryl Streep in the 2011 movie of the same name), transformed Britain from the welfare state it was, high on subsidies and public spending, to the Britain we know of today – a developed free nation, high on the rankings (number 14 worldwide) of the global economic freedom index. During her tenure spanning 3 consecutive terms, Mrs Thatcher won the Falklands war for the United Kingdom, crushed the economy-crippling trade unions, cut down on subsidies and government spending, encouraged working class people to buy their government-owned council houses, helped end the Cold War and deregulated the financial sector. Her debate with socialists and her words advocating freedom clearly demonstrate that Margaret Thatcher was a proponent of a small but strong state, individual entrepreneurial ability and free markets.

A famously quoted incident states that as Mrs Thatcher prepared to make her first leader’s speech to the Conservative Party conference in 1975, a speechwriter tried to gee her up by quoting Abraham Lincoln: “You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer.” When he had finished, Mrs Thatcher fished into her handbag to extract a piece of ageing newsprint with the same lines on it. “It goes wherever I go,” she told him. That completely summed up her thinking in my opinion and she couldn’t have started any better.

“U-turn if you want, but this lady is not for turning”, as she’s known to have told her contemporaries. And what every nation needs today is just this – a strong, clairvoyant and effective leader capable of taking quick and decisive actions, and most importantly able to foster the law-bound right of individuals to run their own lives as free as possible from handholding by the state. No wonder she still is the public’s number one choice when it comes to leading the nation during a crisis. The above is especially true in the context of India – for a country like ours deeply mired today in economic/political/social mess, our politicians can learn a lot from Mrs Thatcher. Surely, as democratic nations grow in population and diversity, varying opinions will abound, and political leaders like Thatcher are bound to be labelled “divisive” – but a true leader sets and pursues her/his focus NOT on appeasing the masses via vote-bank politics, but on freedom and good governance.

Laying blame comes easy to everyone and people today are quick to confuse the post-2008 banking/financial crisis to be a consequence of Thatcher’s espousal of a capitalist, free market political ideology and her preference for large scale privatisation over nationalisation of industries. However, the anger and protests displayed by the British citizenry, to me, seem founded on deeply misguided understanding of both the fundamentals of an economy and the role to be played by political leadership. Yes people are free to express their individual opinion the way they wish (including the many protesting youngsters who possibly weren’t even born at the time of her premiership), but I would like to think Britain and its citizens form the thriving, free, democratic nation that it currently is, owing to the transformational decade led by Mrs Thatcher. These protesters owe this very freedom of expression to her staunch upholding of individual freedoms.

Today, the pendulum is swinging dangerously away from the principles Mrs Thatcher advocated. Across the world, the government’s share of the economy has grown sharply in recent years. Regulations – excessive, as well as some necessary ones – are tying up the private sector. Businessmen are under scrutiny as they have not been for 30 years. Demonstrators protest against the very existence of the banking industry, whereas those same people silently benefited during the industry’s heyday. And with the topdown rise of China, state control, not economic liberalism, is being hailed as a model for emerging countries.

For a world in desperate need of growth, this is the wrong direction to head in, as The Economist rightly concludes. Europe will never thrive until it frees up its markets. America will throttle its recovery unless it avoids over-regulation. China will not sustain its success unless it starts to liberalise. This is a crucial time to hang on to Margaret Thatcher’s central perception – that for countries to flourish, people need to push back against the advance of the state. What the world needs now is more Thatcherism, not less. India and other nations will be lucky to find such leaders at their helm, may her soul rest in peace.