Past Writings – 3
India Awaits its Washington: “A revolution results in a new political and economic system. We need both. We need a revolution to give ourselves freedom and prosperity. We need to take power away from Them – because They are simply the new Governor Generals of India. The British never gave Americans their freedom. The Indian Britishers will never do so either. That is why Revolution. Changing rulers by voting for a different symbol is not revolution…How do we make a people believe they are free and understand what freedom really means? How can we muster the courage to rise against Them who control the levers of power to crush all dissent? The How is not easy or obvious. And yet, we must. Some amongst us have to rise. India doesn’t need another Father, what it needs is a Founder – one who can truly set us free. This is the Washington India awaits.”
Nayi Disha: We are the Alternative: “To change minds, channel votes and win elections, we need to offer an alternative. A new direction, a Nayi Disha. We need a clear purpose, a messaging pipe to reach out to people, political entrepreneurs to rise, a platform to unite these entrepreneurs and the voters, leading to a path to power and eventually prosperity. This is our struggle for a better India…The first step to making this alternative vision of a new India a reality is to get the message across to large numbers – a pipe to the masses. In an increasingly repressive environment where the mundane could be seen as seditious, we need a mechanism to create safe spaces for people to communicate and coordinate. A content factory needs to constantly separate fact from the fiction we are fed, and to spread truth in a melange of falsehood forwards.”
United Voters of India: Constructing the Collective: “The idea of UVI needs to be embedded into software – just like Bitcoin. Essentially, UVI is a set of rules wrapped into code. Just like miners and traders gave Bitcoin its initial value, it will be the members and candidates who will provide the impetus to UVI…If half of the NANVs can be persuaded to join UVI and vote for this candidate in the election, the odds of victory are better than even. Repeat in enough constituencies and one has the makings of a Lok Sabha of Independents – a Swatantra Lok Sabha (SLS).”
The Alternative India Needs: “The alternative we should be seeking in India is freedom from our politicians and political parties. The alternative we should be wanting is liberty and prosperity. Unfortunately, there is no leader who will do that – they are all the same. So, if it’s a choice amongst one of them, it really doesn’t matter whom we choose. But if we really want to craft a new future for ourselves and our children, we need to create a new alternative which draws its power from the people – a national movement to free every Lok Sabha seat from the politicians and their parties to form a new government of prosperity which breaks the 250-year-old curse of poverty, which turns ‘caged and poor India’ to ‘free and rich India.’ This is the Nayi Disha Indians need. This is the real alternative India needs.”
Community Organising: The Art of Grassroots Campaigning: “UVI will need an organising model to harness the power of people at the local level – this is where community organising (or just ‘organising’) comes in…Each of us has to create our own group of 10 or 20 people we inspire and recruit. They in turn can fan out and do the same, thus creating snowflakes. Each of us becomes a field organiser – tell our story of self-us-now, build relationships in our neighbourhood and communities, do small meet-ups in our homes, recruit volunteers and then make them into the next set of field organisers by helping them with the planning needed to achieve their goals.”
