I- Day Musings

I am writing this note on a lark-- the morning cuppa I believe being the prime driver, I am gonna keep it short.  

As we complete 66  years of "tryst with destiny",  the question we ought to ask ourselves is, if we've ended up  trading freedom from  foreign powers for  slavery to our own government. I asked myself this question, and much to my dismay, found answering in the affirmative.  

If I were to point at one thing that became very obvious in  the last 66 years, it is the failure of welfare state--- This utopian vision that Gandhi and the  rest of them sold to us. As we celebrate 66th anniversary, the federal government is wondering about free mobiles to Below Poverty Line masses, Food Security Bill is pending, and NREGA  is fostering a moral hazard among India's unemployed with its ever expanding safety net.Foreign trade--- Investment in multi-brand retail, is sought to be stifled under the garb of narrow protectionism  and the lack thereof is fuelling inflation, eating into our hard-earned penny. Subsidies are growing. Deficits are growing. And so is the State. The Liberty that the Constitution promised and the Preamble enshrined is fast becoming a pipe-dream, if its not already become one, inter alia, in the name of equality. 

The next big battle is therefore against the Big State--- Lest we  become a nation of serfs, as Fred Hayek, and George Orwell warned us.  And I think it might be in the fitness of things at the very least,  to dedicate ourselves to the idea this day.