Who am I?
 | Sanjeev Sabhlokसंजीव सभ्लोकsabhlok@gmail.com | sabhlok@protonmail.com |Telegram | Facebook | Parler | Gab | Rumble | Steemit | social.quodverum.com. (banned by Linkedin and Twitter for speaking the truth | Backup Twitter account (frozen) | New Twitter account for Menzies.
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NEW – My candidacy for the Victorian State seat of Bulleen.
Career
I joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1982 in the Haryana cadre. The IAS is the permanent senior civil service of India with the most competitive entrance examination in the world – hundreds of thousands of applicants appear in a series of exams and an interview over the course of one full year, and around 100 are successful each year.
After marriage to a fellow officer I chose to move to Assam. In the IAS I worked in various capacities, including as Deputy Commissioner of Barpeta district, Professor of Management at Lal Bahadur National Academy of Administration and Commissioner to the State Government of Meghalaya in the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India.
Resignation 1 – from the corrupt, socialist Indian government
After realising that India’s governance system is foundationally corrupt and incompetent, and reviewing the causes of this failure, I switched focus from February 1998 to reforming India’s governance through the political process. That led me to resign from the IAS in January 2001 when I left for Australia after my initial attempts to form a liberal party failed.
Resignation 2 – from the Victorian government that created a Police State in 2020
Since March 2001 I worked in Government agencies in Melbourne – first as an executive till 2005 at the Victorian WorkCover Authority, then as an economist in the Department of Treasury and Finance in Victoria.
I resigned as an economist in the Treasury on 9 September 2020 to protest the violations of human rights and the Police State created by the Daniel Andrews government. [My 16 September 2020 article in Australian Financial Review, my October 2020 book, The Great Hysteria and the Broken State, my 13 November 2020 68,000 word complaint to the International Criminal Court, my 30 December 2020 article in The Australian – and the 10 January 2021 Open Letter to ASIO that I co-signed along with 9 others from across the world].
Citizenship: I’m an Australian citizen since late 2005 along with Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI). The OCI is a residency right in (most parts of) India without any voting right or a right to contest elections. The Swarna Bharat Party‘s constitution, approved by the Election Commission of India, gives OCIs the right to be an honorary member. I am therefore a founding (honorary) member of the party, and its Overseas Coordinator.
Education
I was a National Science Talent Scholar in 1976. In 1979 I topped my university in B.Sc. (Hons, Maths) with Physics and Chemistry. I obtained two MAs in economics in 1986 (from Panjab University) and 1995 (from USA), and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business in 1993 from Curtin University in Australia.
In 1999 I obtained a doctorate in economics from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. (See more details – including copies of certificates.)
Political work
I formed the India Policy Institute in 1998, Freedom Team of India in 2007 and Liberal Party of India in 2005. I joined Sharad Joshi’s Swatantra Bharat Party in 2004 but resigned in 2005 and later, in 2013, jointly founded Swarna Bharat Party. (Refer to my April 2017 Times of India article regarding this party.)
Socialist Indian governments have created the hugely skewed incentives that continue to underpin India’s Third World conditions including low productivity and dire poverty. Without fundamental governance reforms, any economic reforms that were implemented since 1991 cannot fully succeed, either. This governance system needs to be totally overhauled.
Why am I in Australia if I’m so focused on India?
People sometimes ask me why I am in Australia and yet talk about reforming India.
In response, first see my blog post: Sharad Bailur believes that I have “no business to tell us how we should live in India”
In summary, it is not out of choice but out of compulsion that I continue to live in Australia. I left India in 2000 since there was no demand for liberty and good governance in India. I will return when India wants to be free.
- I wouldn’t have left India if the reforms I had proposed in 1999-2000 had been considered by the Vajpayee government. I took a lot of my reform ideas to his right-hand man, Ashok Saikia, in addition to other senior officers across the Vajpayee government. No one was interested.
- I would not have left India if the liberal party that I tried to set up in 2000 (an idea I had first proposed in February 1998) had been formed (I held a meeting in Delhi on this topic with Parth Shah, Madhu Kishwar, Subodh Kumar and Sauvik Chakraverti).
- I would have returned to India if my efforts of January 2004 – which led to significant momentum for Sharad Joshi’s Swatantra Bharat Party – had been supported by Indians. Resources were needed but virtually no one contributed anything.
- I might have thereafter returned if the later 2005 Liberal Party of India that I started had gained momentum. But that didn’t go anywhere either.
- Thereafter, I would have still returned to India had people like Nandan Nilekani whom I met in around 2010 were willing to fund the Freedom team of India to find leaders to kickstart a liberal party.
- After all this didn’t happen, I would have still returned to India in 2012-13 if Ramdev had been an honest man (not the slimy crook he turned out to be) and if the clear commitment he gave me to establish a liberal party and raise significant funds for the effort had been fulfilled. But he backed off after the party was fully ready to launch. We launched it anyway, in June 2013 – the Swarna Bharat Party – and it is good that corrupt Ramdev is not part of my journey any more.
By now, in 2022, it is too late to return to India. Plus I’ve decided to get involved in fixing Australia’s plunge into totalitarian “public health” policies.
Key writings
See a partial record since 1980: https://sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/publications.html
Books
The Great Hysteria and The Broken State, 2020
Seeing the Invisible, 2018
Breaking Free of Nehru (download here)
The manuscript The Discovery of Freedom is nearing completion (download here).
Articles
Online blog in Times of India: Seeing the Invisible.
Op-eds: Times of India (and here), News18, The Wire, Australian Financial Review, The Australian.
Cabinet secretariat newsletter: I wrote a detailed article on bureaucratic system reforms in India’s Cabinet Secretariat newsletter.
Freedom First: I wrote numerous articles in Freedom First a few years ago.
My podcasts
MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL AND A FEW KEY LINKS
My youtube channel: here. I have also posted a number of videos on the Freedom Team of India and Swarna Bharat Party channels.
A few key videos:
PODCASTS
On Soundcloud.
SPEECH AT PATANJALI in 2012 (I have TOTALLY severed my links with corrupt Ramdev since then)
In the following speech in December 2012(original version at Bharat Swabhiman), I spoke about my vision for India. This is based on my book, Breaking Free of Nehru (download here)
I also gave a talk at Jantar Mantar on 23 December 2012, with Swami Ramdev:
My opening remarks at the National Reform Summit, Haridwar, 5-8 April 2013
My closing remarks at the Summit
Here’s a 2013 radio interview in NRI Samay.
Please consider reading this interview (a Word document) before reading further.
Also my last testament.
You might also consider reading this discussion of my work at BabusofIndia.
Archival notes
Political philosopher and Indian politician
My role in the Indian bureaucracy gave me an inside understanding of our governance system through close interaction with India’s bureaucratic and political elite. As I studied the issues further, including through further academic study, it became clear to me that India’s failures of governance arise from bad policy. It is not poor implementation that causes India’s problems – for bad policy can NEVER be implemented “properly” in the first place. Bad policy that is to blame for at least 99% our governance failures. That is a key insight that most ‘educated’ Indians still don’t have.
In February 1998 I concluded that our bad policies can’t (and won’t) be changed by our existing political or bureaucratic leaders. I therefore needed to join (or form) a (classical) national liberal political party and become a part of a political alternative to transform India’s governance using evidence-based world-best policies.
In pursuit of this goal I resigned from the IAS in January 2001 [India Today report].
Since then I have worked towards the reform of India’s governance from the “outside” – as a politician.
I’m not a typical politician but a political philosopher and politician nevertheless – focused entirely on forming government in India. I am convinced that no existing political formation or leader provides India with the kind of viable solution that I do. I am therefore determined to work with you to reform India.
But you may well ask in bewilderment: “But how can you be (or become) an Indian politician when you are not even an Indian citizen?” I agree that you have good reason to ask this! For late in 2005, after three failed attempts to form a liberal political opposition [see this, for instance], I decided that given the lack of interest among Indians for good governance I should quit this ambition and take Australian citizenship.
However, I soon also took Overseas Indian citizenship which entitles me to “recover” my Indian citizenship within one year, should – in my lifetime – India actually want to become a modern, ethically governed prosperous nation.
In late 2007 I revived the political strategy with a revised platform (Freedom Team). Should I receive CLEAR signals that India needs me, I will return to India, resume my Indian citizenship, and contest elections. The window of time for that is now rapidly shrinking, however: just another ten or fifteen years remain, outside of which I will not be able to (physically) participate in the political process in India.
My detailed political plans are outlined here and here.
Why do I matter (to you)?
What I bring is critically important for your survival and success in India. I offer the ONLY viable solution to India’s pathetic mis-governance (Breaking Free of Nehru).
All other alternatives have failed – and will fail. Socialism, colonial bureaucracies, communalism: none can succeed. Other alternative efforts – including those of Baba Ramdev (or even JP of Lok Satta), that don’t focus SOLELY on increasing freedom (subject to accountability) – could well create more problems for India than they (may) solve.
It is therefore in your interest to join hands with me – with the Swarna Bharat Party, whose leaders offer India a truly modern governance system. Please support SBP in every way that you can.
More about me
Almost everything about me is publicly available. For instance, you can find out more about me here. My educational and career history is detailed here (on Linkedin).
Most importantly, however, please read my book/s and writings to understand me (and my vision for India) better. If you wish, you can browse through these blog posts that have some autobiographical content. (e.g. this essay that formed part of my application to USC).
Given limited financial resources, I actively use the internet to reach out to those who are interested in a better India. You can easily find me on Facebook,Twitter, Plaxo,Myspace, Sulekha, Orkut, Shelfari,Yahoo, and Google Page. I’m here to help you help yourself.
MY ANCESTRY
I’ve been conducting some explorations – here.
Feedback!
I welcome your feedback/comments at sabhlok@gmail.com.
Blog posts that explain more about me
Sanjeev do something – u just talk/write
Subscribe to my blog by email:
Hi Sanjeev,
Being a bureaucrat yourself, you have identified the problem areas of bureaucracy, which not many are willing to but rather align with the “system”.
Sir,
I could find your party and thought through your article in times of India “Who’s Pseudo-Secular now?”
To join SWARNA BHARAT PARTY and promote in A.P. give your guidance.
What about staunch proponent of Manuvaad, while quoting Chankya and Ram etc?
Hi Sanjeev
I am of Indian background presently living in Australia. I have been reading your blog and am impressed with many of your thoughts and more importantly how you stand and are taking action towards REAL change.
You mention your favour for a free market. What are you thoughts on capitalism and how it influences people?
Pl. see BFN: http://sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/book1/BFN-fullbook.pdf
Hi Sanjeev,
I heard you for the first time on Sky News, talking about your resignation from the Victorian Government. I check your tweets daily, but do not have an account myself. I admire your work and greatly appreciate you speaking out – I know you will not stop.
Saw this video on Robert J Kennedy jnr’s Instagram account today. Full doco coming end of January. Hope you can open!
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CJZgDnnl8B6/?igshid=1fdnebahxo0dx
I have just sent you a video, Sanjeev. I should mention that the interview is with a woman called Catherine Austin Fitts. She worked for the Bush Jnr administration, in the Housing Ministry Department (I think).
Regards,
Vicki
Sir, please address this. During Pandemic, its Air India launched rescue operations. Its Railway and Roadways buses took people. NO PRIVATE players came forward in early days of pandemic. Dont you think considering pandemic, our policies should be made and instead of exiting fields altogether they should operate just like private players with same rules even for its employees. So have same labor laws but be present to serve.
Note : I understand your view that lockdown was not necessary but since it happened and God forbid if such events may recur, should the Gov be not present in minuscule ways
The government can always requisition any private asset during an emergency.
Thank You Sir for your integrity.
I am watching Alan Jones mentioning you.
If you get to Sydney I would love to give you a free portrait
Jom
Hi Sanjeev, after reading your “who am I”, I am really curious about your genuine opinion regarding global warming, increasing CO2. Is it really happening, or just a hoax?
See my many writings. And this site that I operate: https://co2effect.info/
Dear Sir, Please answer my question
what do you think about the government new clause in the IAS law?
https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/mamata-banerjee-writes-to-prime-minister-narendra-modi-again-following-new-clause-in-ias-law/cid/1848496
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/ias-cadre-rules-amendments-west-bengal-explained-7734310/
The entire system IAS needs to be scrapped.
what about IRS and other tenured service at lower level?
Politicians are not the right people to govern the country. Their only skill lies in public speaking. Smriti Irani was an HRD minister in India, her only skill is that she is a good public speaker who can shun anyone. All the Indian politicians have Close to no skills and zero ideas
Any public speaker can beguile masses and rule the country, They see themselves as ruler. In a country like India, it’s very easy to divide and rule. politicians are selfish, they only want to rule, they love power and money.
Hi Sanjeev,
You are an amazing human being. I was going through your bio, its absolutely imporessive. You make India proud. Its just sad that your sincere efforts are not appreciated by either the Indian government or the Victorian government. Nevertheless, we hear you & support you. Wish you all the best in your future endeavours.
Chris