interview
Centre for Civil Society : A Journey in Time
2020
Summary
In this monologue, Parth J. Shah, founder and President of the Centre for Civil Society (CCS), reflects on the think tank's two-decade journey advancing liberal ideas in India. He frames his path as a deliberate choice to combine academic life with activism through a think tank rather than street-level campaigning, and likens his sense of good fortune to that captured in Rose and Milton Friedman's autobiography Two Lucky People. Looking back on twenty-four years since founding CCS in 1997, he expresses satisfaction with what has been achieved despite early skepticism that the venture would fold within a few years.
Shah recounts a formative early encounter with the editorial team of a leading Indian business newspaper, where the first question posed to him was 'how much is CIA paying you?' He treats this anecdote as symptomatic of an Indian mindset — popularized by Indira Gandhi's rhetoric of the 'foreign hand' — that assumed no one would advocate liberal, pro-market ideas in India unless sinisterly funded from abroad. He argues this suspicion of arguments that markets can serve the poor still lingers in public discourse, and credits CCS's survival to the people who joined the organisation and carried its ideas into their own careers.
Key points
- Parth J. Shah founded the Centre for Civil Society in 1997 as a think tank to combine academic life with activism in advancing liberal ideas in India.
- He cites Rose and Milton Friedman's autobiography Two Lucky People as capturing his own sense of being fortunate in the support he received.
- Early observers gave CCS at most five years before Shah was expected to give up and return to the US; he is proud the organisation has lasted twenty-four years.
- Shah credits CCS's longevity to the staff, fellows, and training-programme alumni who carried liberal ideas into their own careers.
- An early talk to a 'pink newspaper' editorial team prompted the question 'how much is CIA paying you?', which Shah treats as symptomatic of Indian suspicion of liberal advocacy.
- He links this suspicion to Indira Gandhi's 'foreign hand' rhetoric and argues it still shapes public discourse on markets in India.
- Shah emphasises that markets and open economies are particularly important for the poor, not merely for business interests.
Transcript
Centre for Civil Society: A Journey in Time
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGEp5QOr51g Duration: 285.8s
Parth J. Shah (00:05): I think I would consider — I really like the biographical book, autobiographical book, of Rose and Milton Friedman. It’s Two Lucky People. I certainly feel that way, that I got very fortunate in support that I received when I wanted to start a think tank in India. I saw that that was interesting way to combine academic life with an activist life. So I’m not a kind of activist who can go on the street and do the — and fight those battles on the street. I’m more of an academic by training, by temperament, and I think, generally, as a person. And I like the idea that I could engage with the ideas through think tank. Right? And maybe thereby contribute to larger public discourse in India. And I would say, no. Overall, looking back on the twenty four year journey, I’m quite happy with what we have been able to do despite the great odds against our survival and continuation. I think most people, when I started in 1997, thought that it was sort of crazy idea, a crazy game. I think many of them predicted that within a couple of years, I would get tired and go back to US. Some had given me five years, so that was most generous time horizon that I’ve seen at the time. That maybe five years would be good enough for you. After that, you are — will actually go back to where you came from in a sense. But I’m happy that I could stay on. I think largely because of the people like you as well and some of the people who are with CCS today and have been with CCS over the entire journey. So many people who worked with CCS, many of them who worked through our training programs and began to promote these ideas in their own walks of life wherever they went, you know, in their own career path. So I feel, overall, it’s a very successful journey. I wouldn’t do it otherwise, maybe any differently. Well, one can think about doing things differently. But I think in terms of broad choice, of doing what I set out to do, I think it has been a very fulfilling journey. I think in terms of initial experiences of starting CCS, I think one that comes to my mind, first and foremost, is about talk I had given, I think, first couple of years of CCS to one of the newspaper editorial team. So I was invited by the editor of the newspaper to give us a talk to the team in terms of, you know, what’s my motivation, why I’m here, what I want to do, what trajectory of the work that I foresee CCS doing moving forward. So I’ve tried to make my brief presentation about the broad ideas about CCS and what I want to achieve, one of the first question that came from the actual team — and this was one of the pink newspapers, as we call it, in the business newspapers in India. Right? The first question I got from one of the senior members of the editorial team was, how much is CIA paying you? And I think that question is really symptomatic, right, in a very, very fundamental way of Indian mindset. Right? And that is how I think most people thought. Of course, some people are able to articulate and say it out loud. But many suddenly thought, yeah, in the back of their mind, right, that nobody will come to India to talk about liberal ideas and sort of open markets, market working for the poor, and how the market actually help the poor. Right? Why markets are important for them, not just for future business for goods. Right? And their whole set of ideas, they thought that nobody can talk about this. Nobody would willing to come to India to talk about them unless somebody is paying them, right, in some sinister way and promoting them to come to India to do this. Right? I think that’s certainly the mindset, of course, popularized by Indira Gandhi in terms of the foreign hand, and even continues to some extent today in much of the public discourse.
Notable passages
"I'm more of an academic by training, by temperament, and I think, generally, as a person. And I like the idea that I could engage with the ideas through think tank."
"nobody will come to India to talk about liberal ideas and sort of open markets, market working for the poor, and how the market actually help the poor."
"I think that's certainly the mindset, of course, popularized by Indira Gandhi in terms of the foreign hand, and even continues to some extent today in much of the public discourse."
"I certainly feel that way, that I got very fortunate in support that I received when I wanted to start a think tank in India."
"popularized by Indira Gandhi in terms of the foreign hand, and even continues to some extent today in much of the public discourse"
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