The citizen should find himself in perfect liberty to engage in the capitalistic exchanges

Columns by Sauvik Chakraverti Antidote: A politics to end politics

Politics as a means to using government action should be resorted to in only exceptional cases. There should be a list of what the government must do, and also a list of what it must not do — with no discretion whatsoever for the politician.

We in India need to embark upon ‘a politics to end politics’. We need political rule over our cities, and this should be our first goal. But this free, civic politics should be circumscribed to the basics (garbage, roads, police) and in each cosmopolis the citizen should find himself in perfect liberty to engage continuously and relentlessly in the processes of capitalistic exchanges. After all, the ancients said that the Four Ends of Man are dharma, artha, kama and moksha. Let us not add ‘politics’ to the list.

The writer is the author of Antidote: Essays Against the Socialist Indian State and its sequel, Antidote2: For Liberal Governance
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