Category: About me

This is a slightly edited version of my discussion within FTI in the last week or so regarding the standards of integrity we need in India.

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You are entitled to be sceptical and to wonder why I am so 'arrogant' in calling others spineless crooks when I myself supported the system till 2000? I'll address this briefly.

I had heard a lot about corruption. Everyone in India has. But I had seen that many officers could remain upright (my father being one of them) and so people like 'us' could save India if only we controlled these deviant politicians. That is why I joined the IAS anyway. (One day if I get time I'll type out my hand written notes from my IAS interview of 1982 – I found it the other day. Very interesting!).

I discovered corruption in government VERY EARLY. The relevant CM was NOT the only one. Virtually everyone in the bureaucracy and politics was steeped in corruption. The instances are so many that I need not recount (I've recounted a few in BFN if you are interested). But I didn't understand either the administrative system nor economics, nor politics. So till I became 30 I did my job in the best way I could. But even before reaching 30 I was getting more and more convinced that change could not come about at the bureaucratic level.

Since 30, by 1989, (if not before) I have been totally clear about the fact that there is no alternative to reform of Government except through political means. Indeed, so much did I talk about this that one day after a major fight in the secretariat with an officer, a good friend (he left the IAS as well and now works in the US) came rushing to me advising me not to jump into politics without preparation – well, I wasn't going to anyway at that stage!

To get a sense of my thoughts at age 32/33 please read: http://tinyurl.com/oo5w3g and http://tinyurl.com/qnyudb (one of these contains my article published the major Assamese newspaper The Sentinel in 1992).

The 1991 experience with the concerned CM was merely one of many. It simply reconfirmed things. I then started investigating causes. Studied in Australia and US for 6 out of the 10 years of my 30s. Tried to explore what causes this problem.

Here's my autobiographical essay submitted as part of an application for the USC College of Arts and Sciences Pre-doctoral Merit University Fellowship on 22 January 1996 – which I did get and so decided to complete my PhD: http://tinyurl.com/otsfbt. It will give you a sense of my attitude towards learning from the 'masters' (gurus).

Everything came together at age 39 in Feb. 1998, and I thought we must have a liberal party in India. Since then numerous efforts and experiences later, FTI. I believe this can work, though I realise it still may not:

a) People differ on what integrity means (I'm stuck in a rut on this. I see things in black and white).

b) People think liberalism is libertarianism and demand freedom without responsibility.

c) Very few people have organisational ability and skills. Most simply are good at talking (not something to be despised, but the fact remains that a liberal party needs organisational experts and we don't have many).

etc.

By 60, in 2019, I will either be back in India full time, or have finally quit India (or even life: there are no guarantees anyone will live to 60!).

So from 22 (joining IAS) to 60, I'd have done whatever I thought was good for India – given my limited understanding. If my little contributions make any difference, fine. If not, I'm quite comfortable doing other things. No fuss at all. I don't need to be Prime Minister of India to be happy. Digging up my garden up and taking pictures of flowers gives me the most exquisite happiness. I live for myself and my principles, not for India. If India (whatever that means: for India is nothing but a bunch of individuals) doesn't budge, so be it. I won't, in any event.

I did quit the IAS (and India) when I thought I could and needed to, and had tried all options to launch a political movement. You may well critique my actions and want me to have done other things. Too bad. I just do what I think I need to. If people in India don't care, sorry – but why should I bother? Have I taken any contract for fixing India? Are you or anyone in India paying me anything? (I won't go into details about how I get not a paisa of retirement entitlements for working 18 years in the IAS…) It is a joint responsibility I talk about. As citizens.

You can question me all you like and you'll get what you see. A liberal at heart and in action.

By 2000 I had developed a strong aversion (better expressed as ghrina: sense of detestation or disgust) towards most officials and businessmen in India who are mere stooges of corrupt politicians. Not from them can one expect to get a good country to bring up one's children, for they are all going in only one direction: money making through corrupt means (or, at best, conniving with the corrupt).

But even as my faith in officials and businesses declined precipitously, I retained some faith in public intellectuals. However, by 2005 I had begun to develop a strong ghrina even towards intellectuals. I have since decided that most 'elites' of India are not worth listening to since they talk a lot but do nothing. Worse, they consort with the corrupt and take pride in such dalliances.

Indeed, India is flooded with 'advisors' today – a dozen of them clustering on top of each rupee coin ('rupee a dozen'). They cluster particularly around policy makers like bees around honey; they write articles and publish books, but they only have lame excuses to make to avoid entering active politics. That would not be so bad if they did not then go out of their way to consort with corrupt politicians.

Many Indian intellectuals tend to be stooges with absolutely no self-respect. They seek audiences with corrupt politicians, they accept awards from them, get photographed with them. They suck up to the corrupt to form part of committees established by governments. Never during this whole process is any tough question asked, never the thunder of public challenge issued. What they should do each time any Minister approaches them for anything is to demand a declaration of assets, a declaration of certified accounts of his elections – and of his party, and spit hard (metaphorically speaking, of course!) on any politician who doesn't prove his or her honesty. You want my advice: first show me you are worthy of my advice. But they don't! You'll find them rolling out the red carpet for corrupt politicians every day.

Therefore I now prefer to spend my time talking only to simple citizen-doers who are untainted by a desire to run around corrupt politicians. Particularly on FTI we should avoid mixing with idle intellectuals who carp and criticise but refuse to undertake any action as citizens.

Liberty did not advance in its early years (17th and 18th centuries) through those who only wrote books (which is always a necessary accompaniment), but by those who actually participated in politics. From Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Milton, Burke, Jefferson, to Paine and beyond, about 80 per cent of the initial impetus to freedom came from doers – liberals who recognised their obligations to society and humanity. It is only in the 20th century that liberals seem to have stopped leading politically in the West and limited themselves to writing books or novels. That might be acceptable in the West but it certainly is not in India, where even rudimentary advances in freedom have yet to be made.

Let's hope Indian liberals are made of sterner stuff than most Indian public intellectuals and will step forward to defend their and their fellow countrymens' liberty – by joining the Freedom Team.