BREAKING FREE OF NEHRU Lets Unleash India! Sanjeev Sabhlok Breaking Free of Nehru: Let's Unleash India! by Sanjeev Sabhlok © 2009 Dedication This book is dedicated to: • your success; • your family’s success; • your country’s success; and • the success of everyone on Earth. Dedicated most importantly, to your freedom to think and to be. Breaking Free of Nehru: Let's Unleash India! by Sanjeev Sabhlok © 2009 Contents Acknowledgement ix Preface xiii CHAPTER 1 Freedom in Indian Life 1 CHAPTER 2 Overview of a Free Society 36 CHAPTER 3 Problems with our Constitution 99 CHAPTER 4 Causes of Political Corruption in India 132 CHAPTER 5 Why is our Bureaucracy so Inept? 163 CHAPTER 6 Unleashing India – A Blueprint 198 APPENDIX 1 Our Accountability 245 APPENDIX 2 Analysis of Declared Election Expenses of 248 a Parliamentary Election NOTES 250 Index 265 Breaking Free of Nehru: Let's Unleash India! by Sanjeev Sabhlok © 2009 Acknowledgements So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor, who having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them. Vivekananda1 I would like to acknowledge and thank the following people, listed in no particular order, for their influence or role either in shaping my thought or in helping me with this book. First, I want to thank my family including my parents (Prem Kumar Sabhlok and Adarsh Sabhlok) and siblings (Rashmi Mehta and Rajeev Sabhlok), my arguments and debates with whom have shaped my world view. Without these discussions and the ready availability of a range of books at home, the principles of ethical liberalism may not have found fertile ground in my mind. I am also grateful to my wife Smita for suffering me for well over two decades and not going insane despite my temperamental excesses, and my children Sukrit and Prateeti for suffering (quite happily, if I may add) my neglect of their studies while writing this book. Second, I am greatly indebted to my fellow thinkers and ‘believers’ including eminent liberals whose work in bringing the ideas of freedom to the people of India has been an inspiration; among them, I would like to mention Gurcharan Das, Dr Parth Shah, Bibek Debroy, Barun Mitra, Madhu Kishwar, Dr Nirvikar Singh, Sharad Joshi, Dr Jayaprakash Narayan, Sauvik Chakraverti and S V Raju, in no particular order. Among them, I’d like to thank Gurcharan Das and Parth Shah, in particular, for their encouragement and support during the writing of this book. I’d also like to thank those Indians or people of Indian origin from across the world who have supported a range of my policy or political enterprises since 1998. I trust they found at least some value in engaging in our common activities while these lasted. I take the lion’s share of responsibility for the failure to continue my initial spurt of work, largely Breaking Free of Nehru: Let's Unleash India! by Sanjeev Sabhlok © 2009 x BREAKING FREE OF NEHRU on account of my developing an extremely painful condition (Repetitive Strain Injury or RSI) from typing for up to 16 hours a day without appropriate care or precaution in late 1998 – a problem that is still with me despite years of intensive treatment. Third, I want to acknowledge my critics and helpers. I would particularly like to thank Suresh Anand, a retired senior public servant from Hong Kong and also my cousin and mentor, for supporting my activities over the years and guiding me in many ways. Drafts prior to 15 April 2007 were informed by extensive comments from Suresh. Gavan O’Farrell and Manish Jaggi also commented. From 15 April 2007, I made the draft manuscript available on the internet. Subsequent drafts were informed by comments from a wide range of people from across the world. I’d particularly like to thank Suresh for his invaluable comments and also Capt. Surya Pullat, Sriram Natarajan, Dr Anil Chawla, Vandana Jaggi and Smita. Chapter 5 has particularly benefited from the comments of Professor Alasdair Roberts of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and Professor John Halligan of the School of Business and Government at the University of Canberra. Fourth, I am indebted to my teachers and colleagues, in particular Professor Michael Magill of the University of Southern California for bringing home to me during his lectures the simplicity and beauty of the price system. He also introduced me (as part of his class) to Hayek’s paper of 1945,2 a paper that summarizes, to my mind, the entire useful information in the discipline of economics. I’d like to thank Gokul Patnaik and Dr Atindra Sen, civil servants, for being exemplars and role models through their dedication to knowledge, openness of mind and personal character. Fifth, I express my gratitude to my therapists and injury managers – in particular, the technical geniuses behind the development of Dragon Naturally Speaking software (hat’s off to them!) which, since early 2002, brought a ray of hope into my life and by now has become the mainstay of my ‘writing’ (dictating) both at work and at home. This book was almost entirely dictated using this software. I also acknowledge my extreme debt of gratitude to Peter Prskalo, my myotherapist. Had someone told me during my particularly bleak days of 2000–2 that I might be able to actually write a book in a few years’ time, I wouldn’t have believed it, being unable at that stage even to type or even write with a pen a short paragraph, or sign my name, or lift a small bag of groceries, without experiencing excruciating pain and numbness. To Peter’s work must also go most of the credit for reviving me from what, Breaking Free of Nehru: Let's Unleash India! by Sanjeev Sabhlok © 2009 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi in retrospect, was surely a depressive state of mind. I have supplemented Peter’s therapy with Pilates, Yoga and swimming. I have been fortunate to learn about Yoga from teachers like Adrianne Cook who is sprightly fit at 80 plus, and Chitra Stern. There are many others naming whom individually would convert this book into a telephone directory. They also include those who have exercised great influence on me without ever having known me, namely writers, both living and dead, of books written across the ages. I’d like to mention just three names to keep this brief – Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and Julian Simon. I take full responsibility for all errors found in this book, particularly given that this has been produced in bits and moments snatched from a busy full-time job. Finally, a disclaimer: my views are not to be taken as in any way representing the views of organizations I have worked for either in India or in Australia. Finally, given my intention to revise this book in the future, I seek your questions, suggestions and comments at [email protected]. Sanjeev Sabhlok3 Melbourne, Australia 1 May 2008 Breaking Free of Nehru: Let's Unleash India! by Sanjeev Sabhlok © 2009 Preface Nehru was the best leader we have had in independent India’s government. It has been an even more downhill journey ever since. Chapter 3 of this book. This is a book about changing India. About setting us free. This is a book about restoring our values and our national character. A book about making India a great place to bring up our children. More a pamphlet than a book, this is a conversation between one Indian and another, an attempt to discuss what we have lost by letting socialists trample on our country’s ancient genius and moral character for 60 years; and to explore what it will take to bring back India to the right path – of freedom – and then take it to a tryst with true greatness. Despite progress made by India over the past six decades, Pranab Bardhan has argued that India is now effectively a failed state. One can’t agree fully with such a characterization, for India won’t implode – even if Indian governments can’t seem to provide the fundamental services for which they are elected: things like law and order, justice, and infrastructure. But the underlying concern repeatedly raised by many commentators is quite legitimate. India’s future success will hinge critically on whether it takes such concerns on board. The message is thus clear: India’s governance must be reformed. This book illuminates a path to such a reformed and much better India. It uses proven ways of thinking and analysis to suggest solutions that will make India tremendously more prosperous even as it will lead the world in ethical values. While this book’s message is very important, I must hasten to add at the outset that I have absolutely nothing new to say. I am promoting old, well tried out but very successful ideas. Even though these ideas are old, they do enable everything new and innovative to arise. Nothing else comes even close to fostering innovation as these old ideas of Breaking Free of Nehru: Let's Unleash India! by Sanjeev Sabhlok © 2009 xiv BREAKING FREE OF NEHRU liberty and freedom do. Evidence of the success of the ideas I will promote in this work abounds in hundreds of books and thousands of research studies. The truth of these ideas is evident in the easily observable difference between the performance of India and any free nation on virtually any indicator of well-being. Scores of major thinkers have already said, over hundreds of years, what I will say in this book.