Author and Senior Lecturer, Australian National University, Aditya Balasubramanian, on Wednesday said that the history of Swatantra party, founded by one of Congress’ well-known leaders C. Rajagopalachari, will reiterate the importance of a strong Opposition in society.
It has lessons on using institutions of the government to keep a check on excesses of power, provide ideological diversity, and communicate and educate the public in a didactic sense.
At a time when we are facing a trend, over the last decade, of substantial centralisation of power, it can offer a perspective on decentralisation and governance.
Mr. Aditya was speaking at the launch of the book Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India, hosted by Shobana Kamineni, executive vice-chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Group, at Madras School Of Economics in Chennai. He was a part of the panel that comprised noted historian Srinath Raghavan, writer A.R. Venkatachalapathy and Management Consultant Ireena Vittal.
Responding to a question by Mr. Srinath about what free marketeers (like Swatantra party founder Rajagopalachari) were on about when the Constitution envisaged ‘capitalist relations of economy’, Mr. Aditya said: “India is always a mixed economy. It is not a socialist economy in the sense of the Soviet Union. We have private and public sectors. The five-year plans prioritise public sector investment in the beginning. So, I would draw a distinction between the sort of state coordination of economic activity versus what your free economy people want, which is state facilitation, in a certain fashion.”
Speaking on the heterogeneity of the Swatantra party, unlike its image left behind by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that it was a party of ex-Maharajas and big businesses who were running it, Mr. Aditya said: “The way I understand it has been that the vote bank story of the Swatantra party is probably like feudal elites and Maharajas. But, if you were to look at the party documents and the people who are top brass, it is different. It is not your Maharajahs and Zamindars. It is N.G. Ranga, Minoo Masani, a Parsi businessman.... These are people who hail from communities that are traditionally land-owning dominant and mercantile castes.”
