The email of 23 December 2007 that started the Freedom Team of India

One fine day in December 2007, after having mulled over it for many months (FTI had long been been proposed in my draft book, BFN), I decided to take the plunge for the last time, to look for a liberal alternative for India. No one told me to do it. No one except Anil Sharma – among those I had initially invited – was 100 per cent dedicated to such an idea. But the team moved incrementally from then, as people like Shantanu incrementally got persuaded.

For the record, [a copy of the mail without names of the 28 persons to whom it was sent is available here: http://freedomteam.in/initial-email]:

==[from my Eudora records, which contain sabhlokcity.com emails from October 1999]==

From: Sanjeev Sabhlok <s@sabhlokcity.com>

Subject: Do you want to join the Freedom Team of India?

To: [email IDs removed]

1. Anil Sharma

2. Antony Joseph

3. Ashok Desai

4. Atindra Sen

5. Babu Joseph

6. BV Talwar

7. Barun Mitra

8. Bibek Debroy

9. JP (by then he had started the LS Party)

10. Nirvikar Singh

11. SV Raju

12. Rakesh Wadhwa

13. Suresh Anand

14. Parth Shah

15. Gurcharan Das

16. Sauvik Chakraverti [Note – I had tried to maintain good relations with him despite incidents of 2004-2006 or so]

17. Mehta (forget his first name)

18. Jal Khambata

19. Madhu Kishwar

20. Mohit Satyanand

21. Deepak Lal

22. Raj Cherubal

23. Ramesh Ramanathan

24. Shantanu Bhagwat

25. N Sriram

26. Yazad Jal

27. Swati Ramanathan

28. Ajay Gandhi

Dear Friends

I am starting a Yahoo Groups platform to support the potential Freedom Team of India that I refer to in my forthcoming book 'Breaking Free of Nehru' which is due to hit bookstores mid-2008. See details at https://www.sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/breakingfree.html).  

The Freedom Team is a group of potentially 1500 or more selected people who will come together to spread the message of freedom in India over the coming years and decades. Membership will be by invitation or personal screening only. The preliminary criteria of membership are available at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freedomteam-india/ . Being a non-citizen, my role will be exclusively as a non-political facilitator. If things go well, the Freedom Team of India will attract high quality talent over the course of the coming years.

I am writing to you based on our previous interactions and my understanding of your work. If you are interested in being a part in this endeavour, please let me know. I'll then send you an official invitation  to join the group. Names of potential invitees whom I have missed out may please be sent to me.

Regards
Sanjeev
sanjeev sabhlok