The cost of liberalisation

When a cotton bud blossoms
It prays and groans
Don't let me turn
Into a killer's uniform
– Punjabi poet Surjit Patar

Surendra Mohan

When Surendra Mohan (1926-2010) passed away in the wintry chill of December in New Delhi, the mainstream media in India barely took notice. He is one of the last remaining egalitarian visionaries of Southasia who have begun to fade away. In this era of pragmatists, Mohan, a socialist, intellectual and lifelong activist, was beginning to appear like an anachronism in the city that has become a prominent bastion of capitalism. He maintained his presence to the very end in a polity where the worth of a person is measured by their ability to influence policy decisions of a government – an example perhaps of his personal integrity and commitment.

Surendra Mohan was a conscientious fighter in the independence movement of 1947, a Gandhian in belief and practice. He was also involved in activism and the struggle against the Indira authoritarianism of the mid-seventies that led to the short-lived democratic experiments of 1977 in the Indian repub+7lic. It was his Gandhian-socialist image that enabled him to create and maintain cross-border comradeship with like-minded individuals in Bangladesh, Burma, Pakistan and Nepal independently and through his association with Socialist International. Those who mourned Surendra Mohan in Southasia were in a way lamenting their increasing insignificance in a region that has embraced free-market fundamentalism with the zeal of a neo-convert. Liberalism as an idelogy has nothing to do with political liberties any longer; it is now an economic theory that advocates free competition and self-regulating markets, ideas once considered dangerous for social justice, peace and democracy.