To Jago or not to Jago?

A few weeks ago I was told my a friend of mine about the TATA Tea Jaago Campaign, which is a pretty interesting ad campaign. And if a tea-company manages to sell some tea while getting a ton of Indians registered to vote, I have no issues with it :).

While googling for Jago, I ended up on the website of Jago Party, a new indian political party whose mission is "to make India a very safe, strong and rich country, [...] using and strengthening democratic institutions. "

Some interesting salient features they mention are

1. Reservation for none, job for everyone through free English education -- Reservation is against the principle of equality and it is a punishment to the merit. Hence Jago Party will abolish all reservations.

2. Hang terrorists, murderers, rapists & corrupts; Judgments in 3 months – In order to reduce crime, mandatory death sentence would be given to terrorists, murderers, rapists and corrupts. Police will be given adequate powers, equipments and staff to meet their challenges. [they did say they would have oversight - AP]

3. All voters will get Rs 600 p.m. in lieu of subsidies, which will be cancelled.

4. 24 hrs electricity & comfortable train journey through privatization; less government activities & more private enterprises, including roads, water, schools, universities, hospitals, ports etc, and most of the Public Sector Undertakings would also be privatized.

5. No Income Tax up to Rs 4 lakh; Reduction in the number and rates of taxes.

All the above are interesting points, but the scary part for me was the "super free private market" part. So, I sent them an email, and Mr. Awadhesh Kumar Singh was kind to respond, and indeed hold a conversation over email on my queries.

I had specifically asked him about his views on the "free market" and what he thought caused the current meltdown in the US economy, and here is what he had to say:

The cause of the present crash in US economy is bad lending practices out of greed to earn risky profit by some of the biggest financial institutions.
Obviously, when we support free market economy, we do not rule out the possibility of some private companies making bad policy decisions. But free market economy has inherent institutional mechanism to punish such companies.

When a company is small, its mistakes are also small and it can be ignored. But in the present scenario, very, very huge companies are becoming bankrupt having trillions of dollars worth assets. Obviously, no democratic government can allow such companies to collapse, because it can have disastrous effects on the entire economy. Hence, the US federal govt is justified in saving these companies and ushering in sound management practices. Once they stabilize, they would be handed over again to the private companies. This is a kind of security and safety net being provided by the govts across the world to safeguard the interest of consumers like insurance policy holders, borrowers etc just like old age pension or medicare. Hence, it is fully justified.

To prevent such crisis in future, govt is also justified in putting in place proper regulatory mechanism for financial institutions to safeguard the interest of consumers. Our support of free market economy also is subject to such regulatory mechanisms.

Their FAQ is pretty detailed, and they are also doing some other interesting stuff - see their RTI page for example. Also, I appreciate their stance on personal freedom.


Recently, I got an email from them asking to join them as a member and pay a small membership fee. I would surely like to help out people who want to help out the country with new ideas [given how fed up I am with the powers-that-be], but with previous attempts at this by people who didn't know what they were getting into(post1, post2), I am not so sure yet, and need your PoVs.

The money is the not the big part, but association surely is. So, what do you say? Maybe I should just do this for now?

P.S. Do you think they are the desi libertarian party? Given they are OK with govt. regulations, it sure seems they aren't.