The 20^th Century World Order was shaped by some powerful Ideologies and doctrines. Liberalism came to the fore, especially after World War 2. Dr John Locke (1632-1704), an English physician and philosopher is credited with creating ‘ liberalism as a distinct line of thinking based on the social contract that each man has a natural right to life and liberty and that Government must not violate these rights.’ Another guiding motive was to push back against religious zealots who sought to impose their fanatical religious views by force and violence. To the 1950s, when liberal ideas caught the popular imagination and liberalism was ‘hailed as the endpoint of mankind’s ideological innovation.’ Just a few decades later the committed proponents of liberalism find themselves besieged by resurgent religious orthodoxy, growing conservatism, and nationalistic fervor. How does a movement with many achievements to its credit find itself in this quandary?

The answer lies in how other potent and contemporary ideologies triumphed, faltered, and failed. Communism. ‘The God that Failed.’ The Utopian Marxist philosophy of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ missed out on a fundamental factor of HUMAN NATURE AND BEHAVIOUR. ‘Power Corrupts. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.’ The famous Maoist quote, ’Power flows from the barrel of a gun’ hit the bulls-eye as to what Marxism morphed into in actual execution. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the Dear Leaders of North Korea, were all brutal dictators. Around the same period, Fascism raised its ugly head.  Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco were the poster boys. Need anything more to be said!!! In sum, ‘a government ruled by a despot or tyrant, controlling the lives of people in which people are not allowed to disagree, let alone protest.’  People who yearn for Strongmen Regimes- as democracy does not seem to be working- should learn from history.

Unbridled capitalism as epitomized by the USA has created huge wealth inequalities with just 1% of the population controlling the economy and thereby the levers of power. Around 30% of Americans have to grind 2 shifts a day just to put food on the table and send their children to school. Human Nature is at play again. Captured in the famous line from the film ‘Wall Street’- ‘Greed is Good.’

Liberalism’s heady decades rolled out voting rights for all adult citizens, abolition of capital punishment in many countries, reproductive rights for women, worker protection laws, and freedom to practice religions…major reforms that deserve to be lauded. The real focus was on the need to expand civil rights. They advocated and fought for gender equality, racial equality, and marriage equality to good effect and purpose. The struggles even transcended into a global social movement for civil rights. Public Order and Well-being not only for one group but for all and for the Greater Good.  The ground realities soon revealed the fault lines. For example, the fondly espoused Melting Pot theory of Multiculturalism ‘assumes that diverse cultural, ethnic and immigrant groups will tend to melt together, subordinating if not abandoning individual cultures and becoming fully assimilated into the predominant society.’ France- the cradle of liberal thought- has banned the Abaya, a loose-fitting tunic for Muslim women, for girls in middle and senior schools. All Muslim clerics have to attend orientation trainings re. The French language, values, and culture. Denmark has changed its policy from seeking integration of asylum seekers to using all measures to return them. Goal of Zero Asylum Seekers. Recently it has sent back 800 Syrian refugees stating that Latatia province in the western part of Syria was safe to return. The major reason for the narrow Brexit victory was the social media posts and videos of hordes of immigrants from Africa, Asia, and the Arab world taking over the UK. Straight out of the pages of Samuel P Huntington’s seminal book, ‘The Clash of Civilisations.’

Liberals sought and established a constitutional order that prized individual freedoms such as freedom of speech and freedom of association; an independent judiciary as a separate pillar of government and even public trial by jury; abolition of autocratic privileges; universal suffrage and universal access to education. However, anything good, even virtuous, taken to the extreme becomes counter-productive. We have a Great Religion being brazenly defiled in Sweden and Denmark under the guise of freedom of expression. The ex-drama teacher and current Canadian PM is silent when a Canadian citizen (& Khalistani terrorist) threatens to blow up an Air India plane on the 19^th of November 2023. He had earlier dismissed Khalistani marches celebrating the assassination of the late Indian PM Mrs Indira Gandhi as ‘mere freedom of expression.’ This one-time hero of the liberal movement is becoming an embarrassment to them by crossing the line that should not be crossed. Yeah, we know that he cannot upset his vote bank and his coalition partner.

In the Southern States of the US, blacks are still thrown into jail on the smallest charges or pretexts. As convicted felons, they are not eligible to vote. The Second Amendment of the US Constitution allows adult Americans to buy assault weapons across the counter in order to protect themselves. Is this still the Wild West or a modern, civilized democracy? Innocent lives lost in the perennial mass shootings don’t seem to matter. Earlier this year, an anti-abortion, ultra-conservative bench of SCOTUS (US Supreme Court) overturned the Roe vs Wade judgment making abortion illegal in many US States. The powerful Evangelical lobby, backed by the Republican party, had its way.

The establishment of global organizations like the League of Nations after World War 1 and the United Nations after World War 2 is touted as real accomplishments of the liberal order. WHO, UNESCO, IMF, World Bank… are international institutions created by the liberal mind. It’s true that economic liberalism has had a beneficial impact on developing nations. ‘Unrestricted capital flowing in and out of the country boosting economic growth, efficiency and employment.’ However, for many decades the World Bank and the IMF were used as tools by the USA to drive nations into debt, exploit their natural resources, and use their land for military bases. The $1.3 trillion Belt and Road initiative by China is traveling down the same road.  Sticking to China, the Director General of WHO cut a sorry figure doing PR for the Chinese Government to cover up its inept handling of the pandemic and that the COVID-19 virus had leaked from the Wuhan lab. The United Nations has proved totally impotent in mediating the Russia-Ukraine war or the Israeli- Hamas conflict. Going back, there are many historians who cite the League of Nations as one of the causes for the rise of Hitler and World War 2.

Staying with economic liberalism,’ it opposes government intervention in the economy when it leads to inefficient outcomes. It is supportive of a strong State that protects the right to property and enforces contracts. It may also support government intervention to resolve market failures.’ Back to the Caveat any policy taken to excess becomes counter-productive. The systematic deregulation of corporations, banks, and the markets which started under President Reagan in the 1980’s led to the economic meltdown of 2008 which had lasting global consequences. Millions lost their jobs, savings, and pensions. The US and European Governments stepped in to bail out the ‘Too Big to Fail’ companies whose CXOs walked away with fat bonuses. It’s interesting that neo-modern liberalism now supports government regulation of private industry and opposes corporate monopolies.

Many of the liberal bastions have now come under the scanner. Harvard University, which has received $ 1 billion from the Chinese in gifts over the last decade, is now quietly deferring to the Dragon. The BBC, with its biased track record, got into controversy for refusing to call the barbaric Hamas killings of innocent Israelis as a terror attack. It could have objectively done so and also condemned the concerted bombings from Israel which have killed Palestinian civilians in large numbers. The New York Times gets $ 2000 a piece hyper critical Op-eds written by a small group of Indian journalists and intellectuals who have lost their star status and special privileges under the Modi Government.

The Unipolar world with the USA & its Western Allies and the international institutions helped the growth of the Liberal Order.  Ironically, the rise of Communist China as the ‘Factory to the World’ was also facilitated by the Western liberal ecosystem.  The rise of nationalism in many countries across the world has been a setback for this doctrine. Modern nation-states prize their sovereignty and national identity. You just have to tune into the YouTube videos of many African leaders who are calling out the double standards of liberal Western Europe. India also is putting its national interests and national security first as it navigates a turbulent geo-political landscape.

The Constitution of India, drafted by Dr Ambedkar, is a unique, inspiring document with many liberal values and principles embedded. It has kept evolving with the times through Parliamentary Laws and  Supreme Court judgments. Unlike Canada or Scandinavia, hate speech is punishable by law in India under several sections of the Indian Penal Code. There is no liberal attitude to stoking violence or social disharmony, be it on the omnipresent social media.  The recent reservation of one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies for women has taken gender equality and the values of democracy to the highest levels. That this bill was first tabled in the Lok Sabha in 1996 is heart-warming. The Supreme Court recently refused to legalize same-sex marriage and left it for the Parliament to decide. In the comity of nations, India remains in the vanguard for positive progress in several ways. But there are also many complexities and challenges looming ahead. In the context of economic liberalism just to tick box 3 major catalysts for financial inclusivity- the Aadhaar Card introduced in 2009 now has 1.3 billion Indians with digital ID; the Jana Dhan Yojana ( 2014) led to the opening of 400 million new banks accounts for the underprivileged; the UPI Apps ( 2016) and the smart-phone digital revolution which has turned a fragmented, cash-driven, inefficient economy into a formal, organized and high productivity economy.

In India, the liberal challenge is more associated with liberal identity. The majority of our self-professed liberals are aligned with the Left ideology or have associations with the Grand Old Congress Party. Political leaders, media persons, academics, or celebrities from the entertainment industry, their selective narrative and selective outrage has compromised their credibility and undermined their influence. For instance, our Comrades, who pose as human rights activists, are silent about the cruel persecution of a million Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province of China. In 2006, India Today, deemed to be a liberal magazine publication and news channel, presented the Youth Icon Award to Yasin Malik, a Kashmiri terrorist. In a Hard Talk interview with the BBC in 2002, he had laughingly admitted to killing a judge, unarmed Indian Airforce personnel, and some innocent bystanders.  The liberal brigade was out there cheering in full force as the trophy was presented by a Harvard-educated industrialist. In the near future, the Supreme Court will decide whether Malik gets the death sentence or life imprisonment. The 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, as the world acknowledged, was masterminded by the Pakistani ISI and handled from Karachi. Not apparently to the knowledge of 2 self-proclaimed liberals, Congress leader Digvijay Singh and intellectual filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt.  Just 2 years after the attack they were on stage with the infamous Dr Zakir Naik to release the book, ‘26/11- A RSS Conspiracy.’ Another self-styled liberal Vidhu Vinod Chopra released a film ‘Shikara- The Untold Story of Kashmiri Pandits’. As he belongs to Kashmiri lineage there were hopes that the film would expose the brutal, forced exodus of half a million Kashmiri Pandits from their ancestral homeland in the early 90’s. No show. It was reduced to an inter-faith love story and the persecutions and atrocities were simply glossed over. It remained An Untold Story.

Likewise, the ‘Aman Ki Aasha’ (Peace with Pakistan) bleeding hearts should get a reality check done. Our friendly neighbor has launched 4 wars against India and innumerable terror strikes not only in Kashmir but across the country. Pakistan is run by the Army and the ISI. Even today their school textbooks call India ‘the enemy’ and Hindus as kafirs. So-called liberals in their naivety should not undermine national security. That Peace works for the Greater Good is a No-Brainer. But the most liberal way of putting it is that’ it takes two to tango.’ Remember what happened after the ‘Hindi-Chini bhai bhai’ bonhomie in the late 1950s. The Himalayan Blunder was exemplified by the disastrous 1962 India-China war.

The Liberal Conundrum. For India and the World, this Ideology can have a profound impact if liberal thought is mixed with liberal doses of pragmatism.  Looking at the larger picture. Understanding which lines not to cross. Evaluating the results as they happen on the ground.