I spent 90 odd minutes today debating – “challenging Left Liberalism” on the offstumped community portal

I am pretty much a Liberal centrist moderate  who has a 10 degree oscillation on issues to the left and right. There are policy issues on which I may agree with either, neither or sometimes both. For example – GM – the Indian Left & the right were in tandem on this issue. or the Women’s reservation bill – ditto.

I have a problem with labels because they tend to straight jacket views and opinions and polarise discussion – which may make for great spectator sport, but achieves very little in terms of tangible goals.

In India most of these labels break down. I don’t know why but they do. Most parties seem to occupy more or less similar positions on most issues. the points of dissension tend to be Minorities – be they gender, religious, ethnic, caste etal. and policies regarding these minorities.

Just as the cold war was between right wing ‘conservatism’ & right wing socialism – In India the sides are left wing ‘conservatism’ and left wing socialism in various various avtaars. .I see right wing socialism from the BJP and left wing socialism from the Communists. The Congres, is somewhere in the centre.

Of all the parties – I see the Congress, or rather the UPA, being more free market. I see the BJP having a slightly more aggressive stance on National security – but – if I leave out ‘secularism’ and do a blind test between the parties – they are in more or less the same space.

Be it reservation – caste or gender; be it social welfare – in terms of NREGA or education – politically there is a broad consensus that it ought to be done. There may be dispute on the modalities – corruption, leakages, no reservation for religious minorities, no reservation for women etal – but no one is opposing any of these ‘conceptually’.
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I see Liberalism – as essentially standing for freedom – freedom of choice, freedom of market, freedom of individual, freedom to be, and a modern Constitutional Republic being one that guarantees these freedoms. I don’t see any of these parties really standing for these values –because their entire power base is vote bank driven . This entire ‘majority minority’ fault line that is referred to in the question – is also a result of these vote bank politics.

And then I see this fringe – both on the left and the right that will protest at anything – that that is that is made up of the Arundati Roy’s and the Pramod Muthalik’s of the world . They exist on the left and right – and tend to scream shout and grab media attention.

Now, if we are going to use the neo conservative label of ‘left liberal’ with all its associations of the ‘loony fringe’ and that includes the Indian equivalent of being anti big business and pro gay marriage or Anti state – then the answer is no –that group if it exists is barely organised or indeed in agreement on a variety of issues. However, these groups tend to be more elite – and therefore can occupy more media space and are – IMHO – fairly colonised in their thinking. The kind of people who will talk about Indian issues with the US constitution as a reference point.. I have had ‘debates’ with them where, for example, theism would immediately be countered by ‘do you believe in evolution’

But, I believe it is more arm chair rather than any direct involvement ! It is also got the wrong reference points ! but these are convenient reference points for the ELM to latch on to and further the debate. And, to be very honest – the same is the case with the right wing – the western reference points in terms of Nationalism and National Identity – which breaks down in a multi dimensional entity like India.

All sides of the debate – have taken on very firang definitions & positions – that neither accounts for the differences in history, nor the diversity of India, nor the unique developmental challenges. They have taken on values from more or less homogeneous states and societies and tried to transplant them here. So, the debates that I have followed on the net are more in the “Hindutva” v/s “Secularism” space rather than balanced budget v/s “Social Spending” space. I guess the former is easier to disagree/agree on.

Economics is very rarely discussed. There may be an occasional outcry on the farm loan waiver, or a diatribe against Nehruvian planning – and how it is bad for the economy, but very rarely do we discuss the fact that an average of Rs.50,000 crores annually is given as subsidy to fertilizer companies – that possibly distorts the entire market ! There is little focus on now and tomorrow. Most of the focus is historic – and the tack seems to be ‘they misbehaved then, i have a right to misbehave now’ – fairly juvenile and not very productive in terms of achieving anything! it often seems like a fight between kids in the 3rd standard !

Most groups are still stuck on the Hindu v/s Muslim (yawn !!) issues with little attention given to economics or strategy – except that it would be broadly pro regulation – yet not clear on how much; broadly anti-Pak, look blank about China, Think of Africa as a place where they could go on Safari, South America being somewhere out there !
And, of course the fact that we should do ‘something’ about poor people who live in the villages – a line that has me cracking up with laughter !

These also tend to be very absolutist – for example M.F.Hussain. Does he have the right to paint – of course. Does someone else have the right to protest against those paintings ….. they are more ambiguous ! or Should people learn local languages – and can non violent protest be a way of ensuring that ? We may agree on that there should ‘be no violence’ but for some reason – we are anti – protest – and decry protest -against our pet causes – as being misguided.

In all this – the Middle Path is muddied. And, for me, India has always been about the middle path.