Swarajya magazine is a disaster because its editorial director, Sandipan Deb, is a socialist Modi bhakt

At one time there was this thing called centreright.in. I recall reading a few articles on that website from time to time. I notice that Harsh Vora, FTI member, contributed some articles to it. 

In the meanwhile, centreright become Swarajya.

I was delighted when I first heard that someone was taking forward Rajaji’s legacy. I widely circulated news about Swarajya to everyone I knew. Maybe to 5000-10000 people. 

I was anticipating something really good.

Since it has come out, I’ve not read all of Swarjya, but two of the articles I’ve come across have totally put me off.

1) No Country for Other Ideologies?

2) The Land Acquisition Amendments Don’t Change Much

I’ve commented on these here: Swarajya magazine has MUZZLED Rajaji’s voice. It is nothing but the voice of RSS and I can have nothing to do with it. – and on Facebook.

Today I decided to spend time to identify and review the owners/managers of this magazine. Here is what I found:

Staff
Sandipan Deb, Editorial Director
TR Vivek, Executive Editor
Amar Govindarajan, Chief Digital Officer
Prasanna Viswanathan, Chief Executive Officer

Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) 
Jerry Rao
Surjit Bhalla 
Bibek Debroy
Swapan Dasgupta

OWNERS
UNKNOWN: ”Reluctant to divulge the ownership pattern of the magazine but state that Swarajya is backed by like-minded professional venture capital and angel investors with expertise in nurturing start-ups.” [Source]

MY COMMENTS

I know Bibek Roy very well and Surjit Bhalla well enough. Both are excellent economists and liberals. Jerry Rao is modestly liberal – nowhere in the league of Bibek Roy or Surjit Bhalla. Swapan Dasgupta is simply not in the same league. Extremely pro-BJP, hardly liberal.

Now to Sandipan Deb. I checked that he runs this blog. I then read this article Sandipan wrote last year: http://www.sandipanonline.com/modis-first-i-day-speech/. A more fawning view of Modi can hardly be imagined. And he ends his write-up with this:

for me, the most important point he made (other than the removal of that bullet-proof shield) is that he would ask every MP to create a “model village” within his constituency. This is a specific goal, its success easily verifiable, and in one stroke, puts pressure on the MP to deliver to his people. This simple scheme can have extraordinary ripple effects, and no extra government expenditure is needed. Every MP anyway has funds allocated for development of his constituency. It’s just that now, part of what he does with those funds has been formally delineated.

This will force every MP sing for his supper, empower the people, generate competition and pride, and is truly one of those simple ideas that makes you wonder why no one thought of it before.

This is deeply illiberal, 100 PER CENT SOCIALIST. It displays no understanding of governance systems, no understanding that villages don’t become “model” villages through MPs’ charity. To put it mildly, this is an absolutely idiotic view, typically shared by most “intellectuals” of India who have never spent five minutes to understand governance, incentives or liberty. 

With such a confused Modi bhakt as its editorial director, is it a surprise that we are getting utter socialist gibberish from this magazine?

And who exactly are its owners? These are people who have chosen to hide their names. Why? Are they are backed by BJP/RSS/Modi? All very suspicious. I don’t trust those who claim to be liberal but hide their identity.

But why do I even care about Swarajya – to spend time commenting on it? Had it continued as centreright.in I would have ignored these articles as being of one piece – the standard confused repertoire that comes from typical Indian “intellectuals”. 

But this is supposed to be SWARAJYA! That’s a highly respected name. Deb even harked back to Rajaji in his interview that I’ve cited above. I had every right to imagine that this was going to be a genuine classical liberal magazine. It is not. That’s what’s bothering me.

Also that its owners are FLUSH WITH MONEY. They have paid off CCS to create indianliberals.in website which contains a link to this magazine (but not to the Sone Ki Chidiya agenda!!!). So now should CCS be deemed to be part of the Sangha parivar?

The term Swarajya has been hijacked by illiberal Modi bhakts who have little or no clue about liberalism. They definitely have no clue about Rajaji’s work, and little understanding of painstaking further work on liberalism in India since Rajaji’s death.

I will share this post with Bibek Roy and Surajit Bhalla for their information. Either they should get themselves a genuine classical liberal editor for Swarajya, or they should resign from the editorial board, lest their reputation is tarnished by some of the articles being published.