Freedom First

Summary

The rendered pages show the July 2009 issue of Freedom First, a liberal monthly, opening with a cover on “The Arithmetic of Stability” after the 2009 general election and a notice commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Swatantra Party. The contents page frames the issue around the 2009 elections, independent citizens entering politics, the Swatantra legacy, the death of G. K. Sundaram, and the centenary of Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj. The early columns gather liberal and anti-authoritarian quotations, remember Sundaram as a committed liberal and Swatantra organiser, and criticise gimmicky governance, misuse of police personnel, and coercive street politics around language signage.

Key points

• The issue treats the 2009 general election as both a democratic achievement and a warning about money power, caste and regional bargaining, corruption, and weak ideological debate.

• Suresh C. Sharma argues that India’s democracy remains credible because of elections, press freedom, religious freedom, judicial independence, and apolitical armed forces, while still calling it a functional anarchy.

• N. Vittal reads the election from a liberal perspective, asking whether the result improves rule of law, market competition, individual opportunity, and good governance.

• The independent-candidate section records Meera Sanyal, Arun Bhatia, and N. S. Venkataraman describing campaign constraints, citizen apathy, volunteer mobilisation, and the difficulty of contesting without party machinery.

• The memorial page presents G. K. Sundaram as a freedom fighter, textile industrialist, Swatantra Party supporter, and opponent of the permit-quota-licence raj.

• R. Srinivasan’s opening pages on Hind Swaraj place Gandhi’s book in a wider Asian anti-imperial mood, then criticise its sweeping condemnation of Western civilisation from a liberal standpoint.

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