Letter of the Week

This is apropos of your editorial, ‘Ceiling on India’ (IE, April 6). Although your newspaper has now clearly declared that its stand is that the government doesn’t have any role to play in the acquisition of land for industries, you still seem to be in doubt about your liberal leanings. Throughout the editorial you adopt an apologetic tone and are, in fact, worried that the total withdrawal of the state from the land acquisition process may put roadblocks in the process of rapid industrialisation. Sir, I want to ask you, since when have liberals become concerned about ‘rapid industrialisation’? The liberal idea is that of leaving society to develop at its own pace with the state just playing the role of a regulator and not intervening either to slow down or increase this pace (as your worry about rapid industrialisation suggests). This is the principled liberal stand. It might lead to some kind of disadvantage in terms of competition with someone else in this globalised world where countries like China are ready to do anything to attract investment. But then it can’t be a liberal position. Your position would fall in the category of ‘opportunist liberalism’. and I know you don’t like the epithet.