IFAN Meeting 2008

Dear FNSt Alumnis,

We wish you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR and Wish you all have great success in your endeavour this year.

With the new year, we need to plan our next meeting of IFAN. FNSt had a meeting with IFAN Core-committee members last week to decide on the agenda for the next IFAN meeting.

We discussed that in our next meeting we would like to strive towards a few specific outputs, for which we need your valuable suggestions. The suggestions should be on how you as IFAN member would like to do activity this year and engage yourself or your organisation in improving understanding of liberal ideas and promoting liberal values and also add value to members of the network.

A draft of the next meeting agenda has been prepared which is enclosed for your suggestions and comments.

We request you to kindly send in your suggestions or comments with regards to your contribution and agenda for IFAN meeting. This would enable us to accordingly extend an invitation to participate in the next IFAN meeting. We plan to have meeting in the first week of April, 2008.

The suggestions could be either emailed to us or could be included in the blog, http://ifan-indianfnfalumninetwork.blogspot.com/.

We would appreciate an early response preferably in next two weeks.

Warm regards,

Nupur Hasija
Executive, Coordination


Draft Agenda of IFAN 2008 Meeting

IFAN as network, which provides a platform for the members to exchange ideas, and explore ways of collaborating with each others, in order to build synergy towards a wider liberal movement in India.

In the last two meetings of IFAN, we have worked to provide a structure and direction to the network. In last meeting, Alumni’s have also shared their area of interest and the area where they can promote liberal ideas. At the 2008 meeting, we could strive towards a few specific outputs. With this in mind, we may like to discuss the following objectives for the next IFAN meeting, which could be held in the first week of April 2008.

Objectives:

1. IFAN members discuss on activities how they would engage themselves in improving understanding of liberal ideas and promoting liberal values and also add value to members of the network.

Once common grounds are found, the members might break up in different working groups to explore in details the possible areas of cooperation, and the nature of that collaboration, with the aim of coming up with specific programme of activities from each of working groups.

2. FNSt is proposing a national Liberal Convention for later this year. And IFAN members may discuss the possible way they could contribute to making this a success. Particularly, suggesting themes and topics, identifying speakers and resource persons, and pursuing with the resource persons to ensure their participation. Also, where possible, volunteering to participate in the organizational aspects of the conference.

3. FNSt is supporting to build afresh a liberal youth movement - Liberal Youth Forum of India (LYF-India). IFAN meeting may be coordinated with the launch of LYF-India, and the core group of LYF-India members may be invited to participate in IFAN as observers, to explore another possible area of collaboration.

Expose the soclialist lie in our Constitution

There has been an interesting development this month. A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the validity of 'socialist' in the Preamble to the Constitution. Also, questioning the constitutionality of the need for all registered political parties to pledge allegiance to socialism under the Representation of People Act. For long, the liberals have been demanding that the socialist pledge is a violation of the democratic spirit and the Constitution. And now we have an opportunity to build awareness of the issue among the people. Here is a list of articles in the media that have looked in to this issue the month of January 2008. All of these articles, and others are also compiled at www.InDefenceofLibertyt.org

1) Socialism, it would then appear, has had no meaning in the Indian Constitution. All along, it has been an empty vessel into which any content could be poured: it was a convenient alibi to rationalise the constitutionality of the economic policies of incumbent governments at various points, writes Shubhankar Dam, in a two-part article in the Daily News of Pakistan, on 13 and 14 January 2008.

2) Constitution says that India is a socialist - along with being a secular and democratic - republic. But have we ever thought about how seriously to take the socialist tag? The presence of the word 'socialist' in the preamble could be taken to mean a broad guiding policy with which all Indian citizens need not agree. However, making it mandatory for all registered parties to pledge loyalty to socialism cuts into Article 19(c), which gives the right to form associations or unions, notes the editorial in Times of India

3) Countries where socialism was the only political ideology of the state inevitably degenerated into dictatorship. So, is there any need for all political parties to pledge allegiance to socialism in a multi-party democracy like India? We need to seriously reconsider the issues, following the notices issued by the Supreme Court to the government and Election Commission. At stake is the democratic and political process itself. Democracy is not just about majority rule, it is also about the freedom enjoyed by those who hold a minority opinion today to win over their fellow citizens. Without that freedom, democracy cannot have any substance, writes Barun Mitra in the Mint on 17 January 2008.

4)The Supreme Court recently shot down a challenge to Indira Gandhi's 1970s-era ploy to stamp her economic policies on the country in perpetuity. At issue: Does the word "socialism" belong in the Indian Constitution? Parliament can still fix this mess, but no party is likely to take up the cause because in political circles capitalism and profit are, like Nehru said, "bad words." India could use the same kind of competition in the ideological sphere that's starting to work for the economy, writes Shruti Rajagopalan in the Wall Street Journal on 22 January 2008.

5) Socialist control on industry brought License Raj, which damaged our moral character, making us one of the most corrupt societies. Socialist labour rules shattered accountability among state employees. Hence, above-average people in government produce below-average results--unlike British India , when below-average people delivered above-average results. As a result, even the pretence to offer decent public services has gone. But our saddest insight is that our socialist state did not work on behalf of the people but on behalf of itself. The time has now come for our rulers to look themselves in the mirror and reject these mistakes of our past. Until they do that we will keep living a lie and continue performing below our potential, writes Gurcharan Das in the Times of India on 27 January 2008.

6) The liberal mantra can be summed up as: Free trade, economic freedom, private property, sound money, the rule of law, and collective investment in genuine collective property, which is roads. Yet, liberal parties remain barred. India is condemned to 'hover through the fog and filthy air' of socialism, a political doctrine that places society above the individual, and collective property above private property. Circumstances have committed the entire political process to socialists, and they alone are to be allowed into electoral competition excluding the liberals, writes Sauvik Chakraverti, in the Indian Express on 31 January 2008.

If you write anything on this issue, or if you come across interesting analysis of this issue, please share it with all of us. Please feel free to comment.

Welcome to the IFAN blog

Dear IFAN members,

This is my first attempt to set up a blog for our members. This could be adapted and modified, as the blog becomes a more effective medium for communication between the members. For some time we felt that a blog might be more effective means of communication than a email list. So I hope you will use it to share information, ideas, and help nurture this liberal network in India.

Please feel free to post your comments, and provide links to your blogs and websites.

Please allow me to take the first shot at information sharing. We have created a new web site www.InDefenceofLiberty.org This is a kind a web based liberal newspaper and media clippings that seek to promote liberal values and ideas in India, and across Asia. You could become a partner, and publish your own articles and recommend relevant articles. It has a user friendly CMS to help the partners publish their articles. The articles can be classified in major sections as per their subject. And there is a keyword feature that allows the articles to be searched more easily.

The difference between this web site, and this blog is that the web site has a more formal structure, and the published material are more or less stand alone articles. This blog I presume will be more informal in character, with network members being able to quickly know about others, and jot down their grief comments in the process of a dialogue.

That is all for now. Let me see how this comes out on the blog.

To liberalism,

Barun Mitra