Anyway it is very much heartening to know that this person is not in ‘BHARAT” anymore.

I just read your book(on internet) titled “Breaking free of Nehru”. I admire you for writing such a scholarly well researched work which analyses various elements affecting our system of governance namely history, political economy and constitution etc. I like your frank criticism and bold solutions. I admire you because of your nationalistic views. Let me say that reading your book made me find answers to many questions that I always used to pose to myself without much success.

As I see your whole thesis is based on corruption ridden India, and how to get rid of it which you attribute to the policy of Nehruvian socialism, and by adopting a complete capitalist system we can get out of this mess. In this regard, I appreciate your ambition of initiating a party based on liberal democratic values.

You hold responsible Nehru’s statist policy for weak governance which I largely buy. But corruption in India is just not an emanation of socialist economy, this disease has been ingrained into Indian mind during the British raj itself, which latter encouraged, consolidated with strong state centered economy. You focus strongly on corruption but neglected other important elements affecting our country more viciously like poverty, poor education and health system. And these elements further leads to a more corrupt system. As I think one of the reasons behind poverty is our feudal system which unfortunately did not end with independence but got recreated with centralized strong state system.

I liked your comparative analysis of Nehru and Gandhian way of governance. But I don’t agree when you say “rights is a dangerous word, it conjures up a free lunch”. I think a fundamental right is complimentary to freedom. Without asking for rights to state, it can’t deliver all alone. If people are inept to exercise their rights then such state can become a less responsible thus inactive one. Rights is legal concept, freedom is social(individual and communitarian) construct, so one can’t exist or flourish without other one.

I share disagreement on certain issues like government’s role in religious issues, land-reform and reservation policy.

State and religion should be entirely separate, I fully agree on this view of post modern Westphalia state’s secular vision. Let me just take you back to those lines when you say that government should not give subsidy for Haj yatra etc. I believe state is a conglomeration of institutions which are run by various executive structures headed by elected politicians. In India, religion plays large role in people’s daily life, sometimes it becomes a way of life for most of them especially in India. In such country, a politician’s role is to support their such important activities but not to discourage them. By extending financial support to Haj or Vaishnav devi yatra, the government t simply shows a good-will gesture of fulfilling their needs; by not providing such help the government will not be termed as secular but as insensitive (who does not understand the needs of its own people). Being irreligious in the name of secularism is western form of secularism, it’s not Indian.

I agree with your view of abolition of caste system, I always considered it to be a barrier on the path of development for Indian society. But not supporting reservation policy, it means not giving enough opportunity to oppressed ones to meet up the level of general category people. Yes, once after giving it then after certain period of time, it should be lifted too, it should not remain there for always otherwise it will affect negatively. I’m in favour of such affirmative action because such policies give opportunities to those whom have been denied rights for centuries.

Thirdly, your view on land reform is equally unacceptable to me. Because that was an effective way of dismantling the deep rooted feudal system. Your saying “ could we not have, through equal opportunity and rule of law, made zamindars completely irrelevant” sounds biased. How can one allow such system where a handful people possess hundreds of bigha of land where as a huge chunk of people will have nothing apart from working in their land at low wage and getting exploited in all forms. Many of such zamindars inherited the land, if government had not snatched them away then that piece of land still remained under traditional owners’ possession who continued to exploit their workers till today if land reform had not happened. It’s the role of state to distribute wealth in such a just way that one section should not exploit the vulnerable ones; especially in a newly formed state like India where, before 1947 the society was very unjust in terms of caste(lower caste people) and class(landless laborers). So here I support Nehru’s policy of land reform and affirmative action. How can be achieved equality in society if you don’t protect oppressed ones by providing them extra safety net against the rich, and giving them extra opportunity to grow to come up to level of middle class?

On the issue of women reservation, you have compared India with Sweden(with Australia too) which sounds a bit unrealistic. Both counties have different past, different set of society, different geography, so the comparison is not logical.

Your sense of comparison sometimes goes too far as if a non Indian writing this book based on facts and figure and without respecting the sentiments of people. For example, when you compare Australian system with Argentinean football team and Indian administrative system with some rural team of Bihar, it does not sound good. Your selection of word of “ rural team of Bihar” shows that you are discriminatory against one particular region of India. This is rude journalistic way of comparing two extreme things, but reader expects you to be sober. You can’t love your country by singling out a state because of its backwardness.

Your views of reducing the constitution up to 10 pages (drafted by 20 peoples) is something that I don’t understand that how the book of “we the people” weaken the governance; I believe we’re bad at the level of implementing things which can be improved by reforming the judiciary system.

Over all I enjoyed very much reading your well researched book which is more scholarly than political. Thanks to your book I found answers for many questions that I often asked myself. You heavily concentrated on corruption, and gave a little space to other important factors like poverty alleviation and education, I think lack of these two nurture the former most. But I understand having been in civil services made you experienced corruption more than anything else. I admire your insightful description of many ideas(for example, high economic growth itself discourages population growth)

I feel sorry for your being leaving country, and settling in Australia. You should have more attempts, because India needs experienced and scholar people like you as political activist. I myself am a nationalist person so I admire your effort that you’ve put into. People are fade up with the present way of governance especially at state level, they want and deserve a liberal political party away from statist congress and communal BJP, I think that time has come to revive the Swatantra party of Rajaji because today’s growing middle class needs a centre right pro-business party with refined ethics and integrity. I don’t think I have any personal attribute of a leader but I do a have strong desire to serve my nation and people, and to change things the way it’s happening. I’d like to remain in touch if you wish, and to receive your comments on my reflections on your book.

Sincerely,
Ajitabh DAS
ESC(Lille) Paris