Gurcharan Das: What is the future of liberalism in India?

India is truly a land of ironies. When I was growing up, India was admired for its robust, liberal democracy but pitied for its socialist, illiberal economy. Today, it is a dynamic, liberal economy but its democracy is slipping, turning illiberal. This is happening, paradoxically, when India’s stature has risen in the world and it is considered a democratic bulwark against autocratic China. What does this reversal mean for the country’s future, and, indeed, of liberalism’s future in India?

I became a liberal in my 30s because I believed in openness, the rule of law and tolerance for others’ views. I also learned to be wary of power – political, religious and economic. Liberalism offered an ethically responsible order of human progress without excessive dependence on the state. It did not surprise me to learn that this philosophy had been the reigning ideology of the world for two centuries as democracies and free markets had spread around the world and become the only sensible way to organise public life. Today, it is disheartening to find that this idea is under grave threat around the world.

I grew up in the “Age of Hope” when Jawaharlal Nehru was our hero and we were all socialists....

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