Liberal A Badge of Pride
thank you very much
sibm bangaluru for inviting me to talk
to you
at your tedx 2020 talk i’m very
privileged and grateful to be here and
particularly to talk
on a theme which is so very relevant
today winds of change
the sub-topic of my lecture to you today
is why the word liberal should not be a
term of abuse
but should be a badge of pride that’s
because i feel that
liberal freedoms are a catalyst for
change
liberal freedoms bring the wins of
change
liberal freedoms are what society moves
forward
with where does the word liberal come
from
the word liberal comes from the word
liberty india is the land of liberty
the preamble of our constitution says we
the people of india
solemnly resolve to secure for every
citizen
liberty liberty of thought
liberty of expression liberty of faith
liberty of belief liberty of worship
india is the land of liberty america too
is the land of liberty you’ve all seen
the statue of liberty
holding aloft the torch
of freedom liberal means
the idea that protects individual
liberty
the idea that protects individual
freedom
the innovative thinker the innovative
entrepreneur
the bold poet the creative painter
the writer who is not afraid the
scientist
who goes against popular belief the
teacher who dares to teach what is
against the conventional wisdom
the freedom to say the right thing but
the freedom also
to say the wrong thing the freedom to
succeed
and the freedom to fail the freedom
to achieve what you want to achieve and
the freedom to see your ideas dashed
the freedom to be wrong is the most
important
driver of change what is happening
to individual freedom in today’s world
we have the colonial
section sedition section 124
a which is a colonial era law with a
british raj
used to clamp down on indian freedom
fighters
that law is being clamped on students
for raising slogans i submit to you
a student may be right a student may be
wrong
but it is the freedom to make mistakes
which is what gives us education
it is the freedom to be wrong which
propels
us forward it is the freedom to say the
right thing but the freedom to also say
the wrong thing
which helps us to achieve what liberty
means
so clamping sedition on a student
terribly damaging for liberty sedition
is being clamped on writers
sedition is being clamped on thinkers
the freedom to think
is increasingly being questioned the
freedom to think is being
muzzled the freedom to express is being
muzzled
the freedom to argue is being muzzled
uh thinkers such as narendra dubholkar
the great intellectual of karnataka what
happened to them
their lives were snuffed out
the journalist and colleague my
colleague gauri lankesh
boldly outspoken you could agree with
her you could disagree with her
but what happened to her her life ended
with a gunshot so individual freedoms
today or those who pursue their
individual freedoms
are being severely curtailed individual
liberties are being curtailed and i put
to you
that if you don’t have liberty of
thought and if you don’t have freedom of
expression how can you have
a liberal innovative diverse economy
how can you have an economy of
entrepreneurs if we are stifled by fear
how can you have an economy of
innovation if we are worried
about the state how can we have
an economy which celebrates
entrepreneurial
boldness if we are worried constantly
about government power who is the
apostle
of indian liberalism to me the father of
the indian nation
is also the father of indian liberalism
mahatma gandhi
was perhaps the world’s greatest liberal
mahatma gandhi believed in the power of
the individual
to prevail over her circumstances
personal transformation would lead to
political transformation
gandhi said i look upon the increase in
the power of the state
with the greatest fear because in the
guise of minimizing
exploitation or in an apparent bid to do
good
the state destroys individuality
which is the catalyst of civilization
for gandhi individuality was the
catalyst of change
the catalyst of growth the catalyst of
progress
yet that individuality is being
destroyed
those who perceive liberal freedoms to
be important who campaign for liberal
freedoms who are liberal
today are called anti-national they’re
called traitors
they’re called urban knuxels an
honorable
law professor honored by harvard law
school
who has worked all her life in the study
of adivasi communities
today languishes in prison for more than
a year
so individual freedoms those who
pursue individual freedoms are being
called all kinds of names
but i submit to you let’s not call the
liberal
names let us instead understand that the
liberal is protecting
that vital catalyst of change which is
individual freedom why is the state
crushing individual freedom
because the indian state started off in
its conception
and its founding as a welfare state in
the neheruvian era the indian state was
supposed to provide the
facilities for individual enterprise and
for individual growth
education health these were the
priorities of the state but today we
find and i submit to you
that the indian state has ceased to be
a welfare state and it is becoming a
police state
enormously powerful laws are being used
to
clamp down on the individual are you
saying something the government doesn’t
like
sedition are you holding some kind of
protest
unlawful activities prevention act
are you asking questions the govern
government doesn’t need to be asked
you’ll be in jail are you writing a play
that the government doesn’t like
you’ll be in jail are you drawing a
cartoon
that some state government doesn’t like
you will be asked to leave your job
are you trying to write a poem that some
government doesn’t like or some
politicians don’t like
you will be persecuted in many ways so
the indian state is refusing to dialogue
with its detractors and with its critics
and i don’t mean the indian state only
of one political
persuasion indian states of all
political persuasions
every political party today is trying to
capture state power
and push partisan ideological agendas
through state power this is where we
need to learn from gandhi
gandhi held very strongly to his beliefs
to his beliefs of vegetarianism to his
belief in
the charcot to his belief in khadi to
his belief
in celibacy to his belief in cow
protection
but gandhi repeatedly emphasized
that we will not use
the power of the state to push
partisan ideological agendas
i may not approve that you are
non-vegetarian i may not approve that
you like to watch certain films
i may not approve of the kind of books
you read or the kind of poetry you write
or the kind of
person you want to marry or the person
you want to fall in love with but i
cannot use state power
to curb your individual liberties
an individual liberty i hasten to add is
not nihilism
or anarchism it is a constitutional
principle
enshrined in our constitution therefore
law
lawful legal liberty is our right
within the framework of the law within
the framework of the constitution
we have the right to personal liberty
but it is this personal liberty that we
are now enjoined
to protect because it is this personal
liberty
which is in deep danger what is
happening to democracy
all over the world democracy is being
taken over by what has been called the
elected authoritarians
in the 1930s it was supposed to be that
democracy’s enemy was
communism in the 1940s
democracy’s enemy was supposed to be
fascism what is democracy’s enemy today
democracy there are leaders who are
coming through the democratic process
who are turning their backs on
democracy’s norms and processes
and erecting a kind of authoritarianism
which democracy is not about democracy
moves to protect the individual
democracy moves to protect the minority
because
the individual is the
most important minority why does
democracy protect
the individual why does democracy
protect the minority
because today’s minority view could be
tomorrow’s majority view
electoral majorities are not permanent
electoral majorities are temporary
they’re transient what is a majority
opinion today
could be a minority opinion tomorrow
today’s minority opinion
could be tomorrow’s majority opinion
therefore
democratic processes the rule of law
protect the minority protect the
individual
and they protect the sanctity of the
individual
it’s very important therefore for us to
relearn
these rules of democracy it is very
important for us to understand
that the cult of the strong man is
blinding us
to our own freedoms when we give our
blind adoration to the strong man
when we give our blind obedience to a
strong man leader
when we worship power power in the form
of a superman
batman baahubali mahabali bajarangbali
he will come into a
place and with this power of his
supernatural
magic he will change everything but when
we give this power to the superman
when we give this power to the dabang
when we give this power to the strong
man
we surrender our own liberty we
surrender our own
individual freedom and it is this
individual freedom
that is actually going to help us grow
and is going to help us grow our economy
and grow our society
but if we surrender this individual
freedom to the quest for power of
somebody else
to the quest of a cult of personality to
the quest for
a personality cult of a strong man that
we take away that vital
resource that is necessary
to move society forward and it is these
elected authoritarians at every level
that i believe are crushing individual
liberty
today look at the power of the
government
for example the uh south korean film
parasite as you know has just won
the academy award for best picture now
we must ask the question
why has an indian film never won for
best picture when we have such a long
developed film industry
after we asked that question we also
have to ask the question
why are we the only democracy where the
central board of film certification
is manned by political appointees
does this happen in any other democracy
is any other democracy
giving the power to politicians to
censor movies
where political appointees will decide
what is a cuss word and what is the
right word and what is the wrong word
when an industry is subject to this kind
of control
how can it shatter the boundaries that
will lead us to excellence
when an industry is subject to this kind
of censorship
how can it achieve the levels of
creativity that will meet international
standards
the british board of film classification
is made up of industry
professionals who classify films the
american
american motion picture association
again an industry body
which is made up of people who simply
classify films it is only in india
that the central board of film
classification
is manned by politicians let us push
back the power of the politician
and let us push back the power of the
state and let us allow individual
liberty
to take greater control of our society i
believe that is
a catalyst for change why should we have
an anomaly like something called the
ministry of information and broadcasting
should a mature democracy have a
ministry
of information india is a country with
the largest number of internet shutdowns
in 2018 67 percent of the world’s
internet shutdowns were in india
since 2014 37 percent
uh of the world’s uh sorry the internet
has been shut down 37 times
internet shutdowns censorship banning
books
which was the first country to ban
salman rushdie’s the satanic verses
india which was a country to exile
its most foremost painter mf hussein
india which was a film that has the
the country that has the worst record in
banning films and banning books
why can’t we see the bbc documentary
india’s daughter on the nirbhaya rape
case
in india it’s banned why can’t we read
javier morrow’s the red
sari in india that’s banned why can’t we
read the great soul by joseph leliweld
on mahatma gandhi
it’s banned why can’t people in gujarat
see the film fana
that’s banned how many bands how many
sensors how many times is our individual
liberty
going to be curtailed by the state
and by so-called politicians who believe
that they are the arbiters
of what is acceptable and what is not
acceptable i submit to you
that this is a time we need to
appreciate what liberty is
and we need to appreciate what our own
individual liberty is
now i’m not making a case for zealous
libertarianism
i’m not making a case for abolishing the
government i’m not about making a case
for
waging a a argument against the
existence of the state completely
i believe governments can be smart
governments in delhi
i must say that the party government
there has a
localized model of service delivery
which is working for the people
this was again the gandhian vision that
when you have
a localized government structure which
delivers services to the people
this is the best government the best
government is local government
the best government is where you can
demand services
from your elected representatives the
best government
is where citizen rules and where
citizens rights
are paramount but when you have a vastly
inflated
centralized government
you then have an oppression of the
citizen
so i submit to you that let’s be
gandhians
let’s embrace liberty let’s embrace
lawful
pursuit of individual freedom and let’s
make the most of liberty
to create change in society because when
we have liberty for ourselves
we have the liberty to change society
and to make society better
where did the great american tech
companies grow
did they grow in washington or did
facebook and twitter and
amazon take life in california far away
from government power far away from the
seat
of political power it is in california
known for free speech known for
innovativeness that you
had the rise of the great
entrepreneurial innovator so let us
embrace
individual liberty for ourselves and for
society as a whole
and enhance liberty in society
to become catalysts and agents of change
because liberty is good for me
it’s good for you and it’s a vital need
at the moment