The Liberal Position

By S. V. Raju

Summary

The Liberal Position, Number 2 (April 2002), is the second issue of the newsletter of the Indian Liberal Group (ILG), written and signed by its President, S. V. Raju. Picking up the ‘story so far’ from the October 2001 inaugural issue, it reports on the organisation’s revival and restructuring: it records 355 members as of April 15, 2002 (with a state-wise table led by Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh), extends membership subscriptions to March 31, 2003, and explains the amended Article 9 of the ILG Constitution, which replaces moribund District Committees with member-driven Local Chapters as the organisation’s primary units. Raju lays out a grassroots theory of the organisation: Local Chapters as the ‘ears, eyes and foot soldiers’ of the ILG, feeding a bottom-up ‘Liberal Position’ on local and national issues, anchored in five professed values — freedom, responsibility, tolerance, social justice, and equality of opportunity. The issue also describes ‘Special Interest Teams’ (SITs) functioning as the ILG’s modest ‘think tanks’ (one having prepared a Statement on the Union Budget circulated to over 120 MPs), an Activities log of seminars and meetings across Kolhapur, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Cochin (several featuring Dr. Detmar Doering of the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung’s Liberales Institut), statements and press releases — including one expressing anguish over the communal violence in Gujarat — a calendar of programmes planned for 2002, and a list of available publications (notably a reprint of Minoo Masani’s We Indians). The issue closes with a personal note from Raju soliciting members’ candid feedback.

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