Revive the Swatanra Party

At the time of Indian independence there were two varying political schools of thought. The bipolar world that was, there were varied opinions on the path India should take. The Swatantra Party was founded by Chakrvarthy Rajagopalachari and it was opposed to Nehruvian socialism of the congress party.

The Swatantra party advocated free enterprise, opposing the licence Raj of those times. In his essay titled ‘Why Swatantra’ written in 1960 Rajagopalachari writes “The Swatantra Party stands for the protection of the individual citizen against the increasing trespasses of the State. It is an answer to the challenge of the so-called Socialism of the Indian Congress party. It is founded on the conviction that social justice and welfare can be attained through the fostering of individual interest and individual enterprise in all fields better than through State ownership and Government control. It is based on the truth that bureaucratic management leads to loss of incentive and waste of resources. When the State trespasses beyond what is legitimately within its province, it just hands over the management from those who are interested in frugal and efficient management to bureaucracy which is untrained and uninterested except in its own survival.”

In my endeavour to decipher history as it really was, I haven’t come across words which where more prophetic than this. The decline of the Swatantra Party and free market thinking was one of the biggest disasters which happened to the country. After thirty one years, the Indian government finally woke up to reality and ended the licence Raj. The benefits have been obvious and we have finally come out of the Hindu Rate¹ of growth and changed orbits. As with all other good things the Swatantra Party lost its shine². Vote bank politics was born³ and socialism was looked upon as a panacea. Probably the only thing socialism ever eradicated in India was free thinking and sowed the seeds of stereotyped thinking which has been wrongly attributed to British Raj.

It’s a paradox that India doesn’t have a liberal, free market political party. India has seen the benefits of an open economy, so a free and open society should naturally exist. This however is not the case in India. Indian politics is still marred by socialism. One of the most absurd laws in the Indian constitution stipulates that every political party needs to swear allegiance to socialism. Despite the fact that socialism threw the economy virtually into an abyss has been overlooked by the law. To add insult to injury, it is looked upon as a great form of governance.

This is one of the major hurdles in reviving the Swatantra Party which was the only voice against Nehruvian Socialism in the 1960⁴. In a way, people must be held responsible for this. There is a general perception among the Indian middle class that, capitalism is sinister. There is thinking that businessmen cut corners. There is also a general attitude that makes them think that success is achieved through luck, being born rich and not enterprise. People prefer the governments and unions to protect them and run for cover. The attitude of the Indian at that time was that we are on one side and employers on the other and both of us won’t trust each other. It was because of this that opportunistic and vote bank socialism surfaced.

Let’s look at corruption now. We all know that it is one of the biggest challenges India faces today. What the licence Raj successfully did was to create a multi level bureaucratic set up which was obsessed to thwart entrepreneurial zeal. Worse still was the fact that the bureaucratic set up was powerful and were bribed to start and sustain businesses. Once money has been shown to them, their appetite kept increasing.

One of the most glorified villains in history is Robin Hood. People think his ideology still lives on in the form of income tax, and that’s a misconception. Looking at the history of taxes, income tax was non existent in the past. Income tax was introduced in a democratic setup to tax the rich a give to the poor. But once the government saw money, their appetite grew, like termite on wood and taxes trickled to the middle class and the poor – the very people who voted in it. In the mean time the rich made corporations, started trusts, and found loop holes to evade tax. They have the power, intent and intellect to change things to their advantage. They just didn’t budge and to this day, the middle class are taxed the highest and that’s why the rich get richer. This example shows that a decision of the masses is not necessarily good for themselves. Ditto with Nehruvian Socialism.

India needs a party which is open to capitalism, open to the world and embraces globalization. Fortunately public opinion is slowly changing. With increased participation of the Indian public in the equity markets the perception of business seems to be changing. Perhaps we have already embarked on a long journey towards a free market.

1 In economics a lousy growth rate of 3-3.5% is known as the Hindu Rate of growth.

2 By arguable and controversial means

3Even at the time of Nehru

4If you thought why the congress gets elected repeatedly – this is why they have a law protecting their ideology and people always need to choose the best of the bad lot with no consideration to ideology

For more information on the subject visit http://liberalpartyofindia.sabhlokcity.com/