Monday, April 01, 2013

Ex-IAS officer Sanjeev Sabhlok asks Arvind Kejriwal to stop “silly dramatics”

Sabhlok
A FORMER IAS officer Sanjeev Sabhlok has a piece of advice to Arvind Kejriwal, a bureaucrat-turned political activist who has been on an indefinite fast against “inflated” power bills. “Arvind should stop this silly dramatics and learn about good governance”, writes Sabhlok, a 1982 batch IAS officer who resigned from the elite service and moved to Australia. Here is Sabhlok’s main objection to Kejriwal’s venture:
“It is not about good governance but giving freebies. Where there are erroneous bills, these should be fixed, but socialist goals being promoted are harmful to India,” Sabhlok writes in his blog which has a tagline: “India I dare you to be rich”.
Meanwhile, Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has claimed that it collected 6.38 lakh letters till Saturday night from people of Delhi who had refused to pay their high electricity bills. The party is urging chief minister Sheila Dikshit to cut power tariff.
“He (Kejriwal) is taking India into the 1950s and 1960s – bad socialist policies,” adds Sabhlok in his commentary. Sabhlok  authored the book “Breaking Free of Nehru: Let’s Unleash India!” where he was critical of socialist policies initiated by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
In an earlier article, Sabhlok wrote that he agreed with Kejriwal that decentralisation is crucial for any system of good governance. “There is NO reason why a government should dabble in anything apart from defence, police and justice…Let there be a thousand local experiments. 80 per cent of the powers of state governments should be devolved to local bodies, and departments of education/health purely act as regulators, not as direct providers of services,” he wrote.
But Sabhlok has serious differences with Kejriwal regarding the latter's policy towards trade and economics. “On this matter – of economic policy – Arvind needs to go back to the drawing board at once before uttering one more word – for he is making comments that are seriously at odds against liberty,” he writes.
Sabhlok suggested Kejriwal to read Nandan Nilekani’s Imagining India, and also writings of Hayek, Friedman, Demsetz and Masani.

Also Read
Who is Sanjeev Sabhlok? (Feb 1, 2010)  
10 things about Arvind Kejriwal (August 20, 2011)

15 comments:

  1. Well argued. But doing things on the ground and bringing changes are difficult. Can we achieve changes in our political system by reading books?

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    1. but books can surely show us a right path !!

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  2. Former bureaucrat Sanjeev Sabhlok has argued well. He has own experiences and realities, may be he has also tried hard to streamline the system but somehow not happy and finally resigned and migrated. Kejriwal's mission is quite different and he is fighting against the systems irregularity and trying to impose pressure tactics and somehow he is successful in imposing the pressure without any result. Kejriwal's strategy is vague and he is more depend on putting corruption charges on the political leaders without solution. So Sanjeev Sablok idea not at all rubbish .Kejriwal has to think on it and more result oriented and invest energy in right direction.

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  3. I fully agree with Sanjeev sir. Kejriwal sir has to change some of his methods. The country needs new breed of leadership. We need genuine people who are true to themselves. He should not resort to the same old sick political gimmicks. Some revolutions take decades. We should have patience and perseverance. Mahatma Gandhi took more than 50 years to achieve what he wanted. Never did he once tried to occupy a post in the party or Government. We need such selfless leaders. I am a great supporter of Mr. Kejriwal. But I do not support some of his methods of revolution. Why should the Government waste tax payers money on meaningless subsidies like fuel subsidy, power subsidy, food subsidy, religious subsidies, etc. Rather this money should be spent on education, health care and infrastructure. The country will be better off then. Kejriwalji the country and its people are fed up of the cheap politics. Please try something new and something more honest. The country needs you. Don't fall into the trap of dirty politics.

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  4. I do not entirely disagree with sanjeev sir. Kejriwal sir should try out new methods. Sitting on fast for all demands is a boring tactic. It easily fades away from ones mind. New new ideas should come from common man like Gandhiji did.

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  5. Kejriwal saheb has an ambition to get into the power of politics. His arguments regarding non payment of biils and asking public to use the resources without paying any cost. This is a negative type of movement which will cost us in coming time. Rather going by the idea of movement during the freedom struggle, he should lead the masses with the aim to evovle ethics within them. He should use the people's support in constructive manner. To create awareness about reasons for loss of electricity, optimum use of water etc. we need constructive emergence of politics in independent india. The freedom struggle ideas won't help much.

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  6. Kejriwal has long way to go.he should take care of his health at this age by avoiding strenous fasts..
    Other have little to contribute except critising honest persons.

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  7. at least he is India .Not Migrated to some other country. I tell you , the biggest problem with India is All talented people , doctors IITian and many other educated people leaving India. they are the people who actually influence people and tell them what is right. That is what kejriwal is doing he is influencing. Not giving his opinion from some other country. I am also an IITian and I can see how my more than half of batchmates leaves this country and never want to come back. I bet If 50% of educated people who left India will come back to india and work here only . Things will be much better. . .. but they only do commenting on here and there... and think they are doing great for India and have right to say anything.

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  8. I don't apreciate this. Every body is doing his bit to improve / bring changes in the country in his own way. We should encourage every body instead of criticisin

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  9. Both are right at their places and should join hands together because they have to fight with two giants Corruption & Conspiracy against good governance. Arvind may have learned how to get into this political Chakraview like Arjun but Sanjeev knows how to fight inside and ensure victory of good governance for India.

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  10. However is the style of the protest fight against corruption should be carried by every one. It should not be the talk of the words.

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  11. We should not forget that all these changes in governance will not happen until and unless , good and intelligent people gets elected as MLA , MP in their respective constituencies. A country with 85% to 90% people that don't have any proper knowledge on how this country is functioning , can never put the right candidate at the political stage . Whatever representative they will elect will be based on Religion , Caste , Ruling Class ,Richness , Local Gunda power etc.In the name of democracy, the present political parties have created a cold war like atmosphere at every state , district and villages . All these good ideas above will never fructify till we remove this menace from our country . Only after removing this menace , we can think about reaching a stage from where we can consider whether we should follow socialist policies or capitalist policies .

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  12. Kejriwal has absolutly no idea on economics and they are totally socialist, where they wanted to fix the prices of items rather than market decide it..
    Thier polies will ruin India and drag it back or stagnant the growth like anything!!!!!!!!!!
    http://brainsickthoughts.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/arvind-kejriwal-ak-the-ak-47-of-socialism/

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  13. The developing methodologies applied by Kajriwal is just for his own goal for political agenda which he captured from Anna's movement. Sanjiv Sir's comment are absolutely logical.

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  14. I agree with one of the comments above, it is great to be all wise and comment from outside the country sitting in comfort and earning in dollars, it takes guts to fight the system out head on. I am not saying I agree with all that Kejriwal is doing in Delhi but atleast he is putting his efforts and testing them on the ground unlike most of the highly educated Indians with opinions and suggestions dime a dozen who live and thrive in comfort outside India.

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