15 January, 2008

Classical Liberalism and the Times of India

Gautam Adhikari, in an important piece on the Times of India edit page, lays down the philosophy of the ToI edit pages:

[W]e are a ‘liberal’ newspaper in the classical sense of the term. Our job is to offer you a wide variety of opinions to help you reflect and form your own views. When we want to express opinions as a newspaper, we do so in our editorials.

Thus, we chose to publish [Ashis] Nandy’s and Praful Bidwai’s (January 2) critical views of Modi for much the same reason we carried columns favourable to Modi written by Swapan Dasgupta (December 30) and Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar (January 6). Our own take on the Gujarat elections we elaborated in a long editorial published on December 24.

[...]

Yes, we have a motive. It’s to stick openly and steadfastly to liberalism. Unfortunately, the political landscape in India leaves little room these days for the play of liberalism as we understand it. Our liberalism compels us to be socially tolerant and economically as well as politically ‘free to choose’. That’s why we are neither socialists nor extreme nationalists. And that’s why we support market forces, which are all about choice, while continuing to believe in an effective role for the state as regulator, facilitator and provider of security for life and property so that, with good governance, we can lead peaceful and prosperous lives in an interconnected world.

Strangely, in an age when you might presume it’s improbable in a modern democracy, it’s actually difficult to belong to our bandwidth in the Indian political spectrum. It isn’t only because the extremes of a fiercely Hindu nationalist right and an obtusely Neanderthal left, with the Congress party being a muddle in the middle, leave little space for reasoned debate along classically liberal lines.

I quote at length because I approve wholeheartedly of such a direction. Apart from publishing voices from across the spectrum, I hope Adhikari also ensures that ToI‘s editorials reflect this classical liberal way of looking at the world, and defend freedom in all its senses. Niranjan Rajadhyaksha of Mint had made a similar commitment when that newspaper launched, but ToI, with its massive audience, could have a far greater impact on public discourse.