Since last three days, we are trying to scrutinize the philosophical and political aspects of Mahatma Gandhi.
It does not matter whether Gandhi ji were Libertarian or not, it is a basic truth that his experiment with non-violence, to assert the fundamental idea of liberty were a success, and they can be used further to explain essentials of libertarianism to much greater degrees in masses. That is all true, yet we must understand that we cannot afford those ideas of Gandhi, which obviously tampers the individual freedom.
It is true that Gandhi never supported idea of property rights, he considered aspiration and acquisition of wealth and profits as evil, he consider an individual’s strive for his personal well-being and pursuit of pleasure as sinful.
Not every Siddhartha will give away his inherited pleasures for the search of truth and become a Gautama Buddha. Continue reading

Contrary to what a lot of people in west think about India and Gandhi, I know that not everybody in India likes Gandhi. In fact I grew up hating Gandhi because I was so much indoctrinated in statism that although the State tries its best to preach Gandhism, the obvious disjunct between being loyal to a state and being Gandhian pacifist makes no sense. Its really a funny thing that on 2nd of October each year, the government celebrates Gandhi’s birthday and Gandhian philosophy by prohibiting sale of liquor all across the nation.. Continue reading

I have always been empathetic to the cause of the poor, and had a special liking for charity. A huge influence in this regard comes from within my family and other close quarters. It wasn’t too long before I got enmeshed into the popular trap of associating charity with socialism, and ‘exploitation’ with the free market; goodness with the working class, and evil with the rich. Much of this distorted view of reality could be associated with interpreting economic issues based on what, taking some help from Bastiat, is seen prima facie and missing out on what goes unseen. Continue reading

Meaning of Life

What is the difference between a dead or unconscious body and a living man?
One may say, it is the conscious, and that would mean that consciousness is life.
To be conscious means to be aware, so awareness or consciousness of what makes a man living? Consciousness of his needs to maintain and further his life and the consciousness to find out the ways to fulfil his needs actually makes a man living. That is, life is consciousness of needs, or desires.
Now the needs of a man or his desires are infinite. Man desires this, that, and something else again, also life is such a weave that to attain a desire and save it, he has to sacrifice some other of his desire. You can not eat your cake and have it too. If you desire for a house, you will have to pay the price for it, your desire to have a plenty of floatable cash will be sacrificed. You can eat a cake after paying say Rs10 for it; you sacrifice the desire to keep those Rs10 in your pocket. Continue reading

Decades ago, our forefathers fought for their and our freedom against the odds of kingdoms, feudalism and the foreign rulers. They fought on the premise of the rights of man as they said, “Self-governance is an individual’s birthright” and expressed the concept of self-governance as the inalienable right of an individual to his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. In those days people knew the essence of liberty and self-governance, not only those who expressed them but also those who heard, appreciated, accepted and subscribed to the words of liberty and self-governance knew what those words meant. Continue reading

A culture is the manner of doing things individually, or in an organized manner as a group, which the majority of populace in a particular group adheres with and accepts.
So, culture can be characterized as individual culture, or as organized culture. Yet often, the Individual culture becomes insignificant against the organized culture of the group or society, and when an individual pertains and adheres with his individual approach and manner of doing things, his manner or culture is testified by categorizing him/her or his/her acts as cultured or uncultured. That makes the individual culture insignificant and the individual becomes either a cultured (skilled) person or uncultured (unsophisticated) person. Continue reading

In India even supporting the idea of owning a gun is an exception, thanks to the ideas of Gandhi and Ahimsa.
No wonder all forgot Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Kunwar Singh and many more.
After the mutiny of 1857, the British lords were trying to ensure every step to avoid any further revolt by Indians against the oppressive foreign government. One of the step was to improve British Army and restructuring the administration and strengthening the ways of communication and transportation. On the other hand, British were also engaged in disarming Indians completely and destroying the local firearm production completely to avoid any further chances of mutiny. Continue reading

The man in the street bleats his excuses
a part of the flock so easily led
wearily down the trodden path to the end of the world
“I want to…I’d like to…I will one day”
“I’d like to change the way I live” Continue reading

Take a look at a person who invests $5 million dollars in bank for 10 years, and he earns (at 6%) $300,000 per year, a salary good enough for a 5 years exp project manager in America. You might say, that man is not working at all, and he is living off the interest. This is no labor, but here is the thing, he is deferring his enjoyment of those $5 million dollars. He is surely getting $300,000 every year, which is a quite a large sum of money and he is surely enjoying that too, but if he uses that $5 million dollars he can do a zillion things, he can buy a big house, a big yacht, a helicopter and scores of other things. BUT he is not able to do all those thing, for next 10 years. He is simply waiting, the 5 million dollars are right now being used by someone who needs it, and using it to make more money.

He is doing the labor of waiting. Continue reading

Born August 31, 1870, Maria Montessori was destined to become an incredible woman. Born into a privileged household she was able to do things no other woman in her time was able. Her education was at an all-boys school, she was the only girl there in attendance. Even her higher education was groundbreaking. She became… Continue reading