Khoj : July - August, 2007

Summary

This is the July-August 2006 issue of Khoj (Year 2, Issue 3; serial number 9), a Gujarati-language bi-monthly periodical edited by Ambrish Mehta and published from Fatehganj, Vadodara, by the ‘Pahel’ (Initiative for Open Society) centre. The masthead motto, ‘Jeevan ek avirat khoj-avishkar’ (‘Life is a ceaseless search and discovery’), captures the journal’s stance as a heterodox liberal review of Indian public affairs. The cover frames the issue’s lead theme by reproducing a 1961 Jawaharlal Nehru passage warning that reservations based on communal or caste considerations ‘lie not only folly, but disaster,’ alongside the Gujarati strapline ‘Anaamat - navesarthi vichariye shun?’ (‘Reservations - should we rethink afresh?’).

The editorial by Mehta revisits the post-Mandal trajectory of caste reservations, recalling that the journal’s circle had opposed the 1990 V.P. Singh-era extension of reservations to OBCs and arguing that birth-based caste quotas in higher education and jobs end up dividing rather than integrating society. The bulk of the issue then assembles voices on the same theme: Arun Shourie on reservations and the constitutional provisions, Mehta on the Mandal Commission, Rajesh Mishra (‘Ahin to aapne hau Harkha j chhiye’), and a co-authored piece by Ambrish and Trupti Parekh on rethinking reservations.

The issue’s other major strand is the seventh installment of Anil Patel’s long-running series ‘Swatantrata - Gyaan ane Bazaar’ (‘Freedom, Knowledge and the Market’), subtitled ‘From hot socialism to soft socialism - the welfare state.’ Opening with Hayek on economic freedom as the precondition of all other freedoms, Patel traces the century 1848-1948 of socialist thought, the Stalinist ‘totalitarian state,’ the disillusionment captured by Trotsky and the ‘tragedy of the commons,’ John Stuart Mill’s drift toward socialism, the Keynesian turn after 1930, and the post-war consolidation of an ‘unlimited democracy’ welfare state in which bureaucracies redistribute under the banner of ‘social justice.’ He invokes Popper and Hayek on dispersed knowledge to argue that decentralised market prices, not central planning, coordinate the marginal adjustments a complex economy actually needs. Other pieces include Trupti Parekh on the July 11 Mumbai train bombings and on the Kevadiya tribal land acquisition for Narmada-area tourism, Shankar Gopalakrishnan on the JPC report on the Forest Rights Bill, Barun Mitra on China’s tiger conservation experiment, Mahendra Chotaliya on values in education, Kirit Panvala on judicial reform, and Sauvik Chakraverti on freeing the mind.

Key points

• Issue is Khoj Year 2, Issue 3 (serial 9), July-August 2006, edited by Ambrish Mehta and published by the Pahel / Initiative for Open Society centre, Fatehganj, Vadodara.
• Cover and lead section frame reservations critically, quoting Nehru (1961) that caste-based reservations and promotions ‘lie not only folly, but disaster.’
• Editorial recalls the journal’s opposition to V.P. Singh’s 1990 acceptance of Mandal Commission OBC quotas and argues birth-based caste quotas fragment rather than integrate society.
• Anil Patel’s seventh ‘Swatantrata - Gyaan ane Bazaar’ installment traces the arc from ‘hot socialism’ (1848-1948) to the post-war welfare state, leaning on Hayek, Popper, J.S. Mill, Trotsky and Keynes.
• Patel argues that dispersed, tacit, local knowledge can only be coordinated through decentralised market prices, and that central planning cannot handle marginal adjustments.
• Trupti Parekh’s ‘Ye hai Bambai, meri jaan’ reports on the 11 July 2006 Mumbai suburban train bombings that killed over 200 people, praising civic response while criticising state intelligence failure.
• Trupti Parekh’s ‘Kisso Kevadiyano’ covers the four-day Deputy Collector-led eviction of Kevadiya tribal families so Narmada Nigam land could be leased to a Mumbai company for a Rs 1.5 crore tourism hotel, questioning the ‘public purpose’ justification.
• Shankar Gopalakrishnan’s ‘Jangal ma daav’ defends the 2005 Forest Rights Bill against critics who called it ‘the most dangerous act since 1947,’ arguing forest-dwellers should be recognised as citizens rather than encroachers.
• Other essays include Arun Shourie on reservations and the Constitution, Barun Mitra on China’s tiger conservation experiment, Mahendra Chotaliya on values-education, Kirit Panvala on judicial reform, and Sauvik Chakraverti on intellectual freedom.