Liberalism found the most votaries at a panel discussion organised by The Statesman last evening, as opposed to extreme Right or Left philosophies. The debate, titled ‘Bushism on the Right, Marxism on the Left and Liberalism is Dead’, coincided with the 24th anniversary of The Statesman Rural Reporting Awards for 2004.The panelists included former NCERT chairman J.S.Rajput, CPI(M) MP Nilotpal Basu, Congress leader Salman Khursheed and editor-in-chief of The Indian Express Group of Newspapers, Shekhar Gupta. Arup Ghosh of Sahara India moderated the discussion.In his opening remarks, Rajput said he was not worried about any ‘‘ism’’ but wanted Indian tradition and heritage to be strengthened. Education must be rooted in Indian culture, he said.CPI(M) MP Nilotpal Basu, on the other hand, clarified that ‘‘Marxism is not adversorial to liberalism’’. Basu found the word ‘‘Bushism’’ a difficult coinage to digest. It boiled down to ‘‘aggressive neo-liberalism’’, Basu said, adding that Marxist resilience has been able to inflict reverses on Bushism. Khursheed countered Basu.Shekhar Gupta said, as a media representative, he would like to follow only ‘‘factism’’. Citing examples of reporting by The Indian Express on Gujarat, allotment of petrol pump and land scam, he said the stories generated hate mails and criticism from the BJP. When the paper applauded the BJP government on holding fair elections in Kashmir, the Left was unhappy. ‘‘So if you are independent, you have nowhere to go,’’ he said. ‘‘But India as a country has a great strength of liberalism. Whenever there is a tilt for any extremes, the people are there to correct it.’’Chairman and editor-in-chief of The Statesman C.R. Irani said the rural award has entered its 24th year. ‘‘The paper is indebted to late Sudhir Ranjan Das, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who was also the chairman of the company. He was the inspiration behind this award,’’ Irani said.The first prize went to Amar Pal Singh Verma of Rajasthan Patrika for his articles on corruption in drought relief. The second prize went to Sagar Chattopadhyay of the CPI(M)-run Ganashakti for his articles on the pirates of Sunderbans. The third prize went to Reji Joseph for his stories on HIV-infected children.
