PHONEY LIBERALISM IN THE TIMES OF INDIA

WRONG, MR. EDITOR

Some months ago, the editor of the Times of India, Gautam Adhikari, published a signed article entitled "Where We Stand" claiming that this leading Indian newspaper is wedded to 'classical liberalism'.

However, the lead editorial of March 15, titled "Clean up Goa", lets the side down. It is illiberal, intolerant and unsympathetic; it is blind to reality; and its prescription is astoundingly impractical. Allow me to elaborate on each point.

The editorial begins by saying that, because of the easy availability of drugs, and because 'liquor flows uninterruptedly', Goa has become 'an attractive hangout for socially dysfunctional people'. Actually, people who successfully 'score' illegal drugs are not at all socially dysfunctional; rather, they are 'black market savvy'; they are 'street smart'. Living in Goa, as I have been for over two years now, it becomes apparent that the really dysfunctional people here are the local alcoholics (and there are scores of them). Still, I wonder if Goa would be a better place if it was like New Delhi, where the government monopolistically sells warm beer in staggeringly hot weather, where drinking in bars in unaffordable even for newspaper editors, and where all queue up outside government shops to buy alcohol.

This first portion of the editorial smacks of intolerance. A true classical liberal would appreciate the fact that 'it takes all kinds to make a world' – and make room in his theories for all these types. Robert Nozick, the liberal philosopher, made the telling point that a truly free society is not one Utopia conceived of by the theorist; rather, it is a 'society of utopianism', wherein each can look for his own utopia.

The next part of the editorial lacks any sympathy for a bereaved mother. This second paragraph should never have been published, being completely irrelevant to the main issue. At a moment of stark state failure, and tragedy, it attempts to implicate a mother who was, in the deepest sense, 'liberal' with her wilful teenage daughter.

Thereafter, the editorial is blind to reality. It asks the totally stupid question: "How is it that the drug trade in Goa is flourishing, that too, in full public view and under the nose of the state police who's duties include cracking down on such activities?" The drug trade is flourishing all over the world, including New Delhi. I myself scored marijuana in London a stone's throw from the headquarters of Scotland Yard. The duties of the Goa police also include ensuring road safety. Every Goan, local as well as tourist, would be safer if this duty was performed. The drug trade should be legalized – but this is probably 'too liberal' an idea for the editor. He wants state action in checking the 'resident status and visa validity' of all foreigners here, a recipe for tyranny. A true liberal would favour a free, long-term 'visa-on-arrival' so that tourism, the largest industry in the world, is encouraged. Goa gets a full forty percent of India's tourism. Of the five million foreigners who risk their necks visiting India every year, two million come to Goa. But fifty million visit China and eighty million go to tiny France. If the editor has his way, tourism in Goa will slump.

The editorial then proceeds to display complete lack of 'knowledge' on drugs saying that 'locally available intoxicants like bhang and charas are a tradition' in Goa. The real hippy tradition here is of ganja. Bhang is not used in Goa, either by locals or tourists. Charas is not a local substance and is imported from the north. Because of illegality, quality charas is hard to find. Only brand names can ensure quality, which requires legalization. I met a group of German tourists who smuggled Moroccan hash into Goa for their holidays, knowing well that good charas is unavailable here. A Dutch tourist I met complained that Goa offered 'bush grass and horseshit hash'. In Holland, all this (and more) is legal, quality is excellent, and the cops are socially functional.

This illiberal, unsympathetic and ignorant editorial then descends to rank idiocy, calling upon Goan civil society to undertake an 'anti-drug crusade' led by the local musician Remo Fernandes. What the state police, armed with draconian legislation and guns, cannot accomplish, cannot be miraculously performed by an ageing performer. Actually, if you talk to drug dealers, you realise that they do not want legalization, which would ultimately institute a market regime of 'normal profits'. Branded ganja and charas would then be sold at probably the same price as Darjeeling tea. Drug dealers abhor this idea because today their profits are astronomical. They share these huge profits with those in authority, corrupting institutions. This also makes them much more powerful than any civil society group. If Remo took up cudgels against them armed with just his guitar, he would not get far.

The editor has revealed his Utopia as a drug-free world. He wants this accomplished by state as well as civil society. But the sorry fact is that his vision has no place for the twin liberal values of Freedom and Justice. The editor of the Times of India, thus, is not a liberal at all.