While the Indian national spectrum allows for a surprising amount of political heterodoxy, with ideologies spanning temple construction, Gandhi-family installation, statue benediction, Bhaiyya defenestration, policy-paralysis-induction, and even more policy-paralysis-induction, there is an almost equally emphatic monochromaticity in economic thought among the political class. In that, there is not a single party of any note that consistently stands for free-markets and limited government. I am not saying, for a second, that what is roughly characterized as libertarian-ism is the solution to India’s economic malaise (far from it if I may add) but some sort of economic diversity in the stated policies of our political masters would bring a countervailing force to the overwhelming preponderance of the big-government protectionist socialism that all parties espouse.
The Swatantra Party tried, a long time ago, to bring a bit of an exotic flavor to the Indian polity, by attempting to infuse concepts like free enterprise into the socio-economic lexicon. They failed. Quite miserably.
The lesson was learnt. In India, the common people have a very definite anthropomorphism of an ideal government.
Namely, the male head of an undivided Hindu joint family.
