The Indian Libertarian

Summary

This 1 September 1958 issue (Vol. VI No. 13) of The Indian Libertarian, the Bombay journal of free economy and libertarian democracy edited by Miss Kusum Lotwala, leads with an editorial, ‘Pak Aggression on the Eastern Borders,’ urging firmness in defence of India’s eastern frontier against Pakistani incursions. In the rendered pages the issue carries M. A. Venkata Rao’s ‘Corruption of Thought,’ M. N. Tholal’s ‘Kashmir: India’s Unanswerable Case,’ V. R.’s ‘Man Against State — American Utopias,’ A. N. S.’s ‘The Leader in Quest of Himself,’ and a reprint of Lawson E. Reno’s ‘Police Power.’ Across these pieces the journal presses its classical-liberal line: a defence of clear thinking and the free individual against collectivist confusion, a constitutional case for India’s claim to Kashmir, and scepticism toward the expanding powers of the state.

Essays

Conception of Thought

By MA Venkata Rao

M. A. Venkata Rao diagnoses a ‘corruption of thought’ in contemporary public life, arguing that muddled and dishonest thinking — the substitution of slogan and sentiment for reasoned argument — is the precondition of bad politics. He treats clear, disciplined thought as a civic and liberal duty, and traces the drift toward collectivism partly to a prior failure of intellectual honesty.

• Identifies dishonest thinking as the root of bad politics
• Defends disciplined reasoning as a liberal civic duty
• Links the slide toward collectivism to a corruption of thought

Kashmir, India’s Unanswerable Case

M. N. Tholal sets out ‘Kashmir: India’s Unanswerable Case,’ opening from Pandit Premnath Bazaz and the Partition agreement to argue that India’s title to Kashmir is constitutionally and democratically sound. He answers the case put before the Congress and at the UN, contending that the standpoint of democracy supports India’s position.

• Argues India’s claim to Kashmir is constitutionally unanswerable
• Engages the Partition agreement and the UN debate
• Grounds the case in a ‘democratic standpoint’

Man Against State

Writing as ‘V. R.,’ this essay on ‘Man Against State — American Utopias’ opens from Karl Marx and turns to the American individualist-anarchist tradition, taking Josiah Warren as its exemplar of the doctrine that the free individual stands prior to and against the state. It surveys the utopian experiments of that tradition as a counterpoint to collectivist political thought.

• Surveys the American individualist-anarchist tradition
• Takes Josiah Warren as exemplar of ‘man against state’
• Opposes individualist utopias to Marxian collectivism

The Leader in Quest of Stability

Writing as ‘A. N. S.,’ this piece — titled ‘The Leader in Quest of Himself’ in the body, though the contents page lists ‘Quest of Stability’ — reflects on political leadership as a matter of self-knowledge, arguing that a leader who has not mastered himself cannot give a nation stable direction. The discussion ranges across contemporary leadership and its discontents.

• Treats leadership as grounded in self-knowledge
• Argues self-mastery precedes national direction
• Body title differs from the contents-page listing

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