Prof Satya Narayan Misra in Bhubaneswar, September 15, 2024: Joseph Stiglitz in his latest book “Road to Freedom “takes on Hayek and Friedman’s undiluted faith in neoliberalism and brings out how bereft of proper regulation, the fruits of prosperity are being purloined by the top 10% of the economy and misery for the bottom 50% of the society. Isiah Berlin wrote that freedom for the wolves often meant death to the sheep.

Ramesh Mishra, a distinguished civil servant of 40 years in a collection of edits titled “Our Life & Times” has brought out how liberalism is gasping for breath and the only oxygen that can resuscitate it ‘is a gust of air of mutual tolerance. In the communally divided times we live in, where the spirit of fraternity ordained by our Constitution is conspicuous by its absence, the 107 edits bunched together as a book could not have been timelier.

Constitution and its contours are comfortable terrain for Mr Mishra. He devotes a few edits to the basic structure doctrine which has been a transformative template for all political parties, cutting across ideology. A concept mooted by the German jurist Dietrich Conrad and forcibly brought forth before the full bench in the Keshav Anand Case by the redoubtable lawyer Nani Palkhiwala, supremacy of the Constitution, federalism, secularism, separation of powers, democracy, Republic, rule of law, free and fair election and independent judiciary which has the power to review legislative and executive decisions judicially have become powerful lexicons in our democratic discourse.

Mr. Mishra also highlights the importance of dissent in judicial decision making as evidenced in the famous ADM Jabalpur Case, where Justice HR Khanna stood in splendid isolation to decree that ‘detention without trial is an anathema who love personal liberty’, even when a national emergency is in place. Such courageous dissent is not consigned to dustbins of history but given the thumping approval by a constitution bench after 41 years in the Puttaswamy Case. On the vexed question of separation of powers, he believes that it is not a mechanical construct, but a framework for cooperation and not conflict between the three organs of the government.

His reflections on governance are full of honesty and firmness. He does not hesitate to deplore the tendency towards politicization of the civil services. He believes that the political executive has largely failed to protect the neutrality and impartiality of the civil servants. One can always argue that it’s two-way traffic, where civil servants have often not shown the Weberian expectation of a neutral, rule-based bureaucracy.

In a delightful edit Yes Minister, he writes ‘The universe of public administration is not confined to a yes or no situation. Better domain knowledge and enhancing state capacity to govern, as brought out by Fukuyama, will help improve governance effectiveness. On the latest controversy of lateral entry, he believes that it can infuse new blood. He, however, puts a caveat that this should be limited since the mode of selection is not transparent.

Ramesh rises to his full intellectual heft when he dwells on the contemporary debate: Is liberalism Dead? He outlines how classical liberalism is perched on three pillars; egalitarianism, universalism and meliorism. An ardent admirer of Michael Sandel’s super read “What Money Cannot Buy?” He quotes him copiously. ‘Altruism, solidarity & civil spirit are not commodities that are depleted with use. They are more like muscles that develop and grow stronger with exercise. Jeffrey Sachs had earlier observed in the context of a flourishing market economy like the USA: Our greatest illusion is that a healthy society can be built on mindless pursuit of wealth.’

For Mr. Mishra, philosophy is not grandstanding. It is about our daily life in a positive direction and the importance of liberal education which conflates creativity with analytical ability. He constantly harks back to the philosophy of Vivekanand and his call for fraternity. He quotes Khali Gibran who called work as ‘love visible’ while noting the ubiquitousness of Marxian alienation among citizens at large. There is an interesting edit on Colonial Conundrum, and the tendency to rename colonial cities. He calls this tendency ‘a symbolic expression of anti-colonialism and at their worst expressions of revanchism, which a mature Republic must forsake. ‘It’s a fitting riposte to the HRD minister’s call to rename the Ravenshaw College.