On the road to Liberty

The media frenzy around the unveiling of Tata Motors’ Nano, may drown two of the most significant aspects of this project, it provides a glimpse of the manufacturing revolution that has largely bypassed India, so far. In that context, tragic events in Singur a year ago could have been easily avoided. This article was published in Liberty Institute's website In Defence of Liberty , on 13 January 2008. The media frenzy around the unveiling of Tata Motors’ Nano, may drown two of the most significant aspects of this project - firstly, it is a completely new product, which aims to make personal transportation accessible to those who could not afford a car earlier; secondly, and more importantly, it provides a glimpse of the manufacturing revolution that has largely bypassed India, so far. While Tata Motors has a long history of making commercial vehicles, it launched its first passenger car only in 1998. In the last ten years, it has produced a million cars, but remains a relatively sma...

June 5, is World Environment Day. This is a good occasion to look at some of the impacts of environmentalism on the people. This article looks at the widening divide between the environmental crusaders and ordinary citizens. A shorter version of this article titled "Let them eat cake or air!-Green Crusade Against the People" appeared in The Economic Times newspaper on June 5, 2000. This famous statement supposedly made by Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France over two centuries ago, has come to symbolise the divide between the elite and the influential on the one hand and the common man on the other. The current battle in Delhi to clean the city's air has once again brought to light this age-old divide. Let's look at some facts. Over a quarter of this capital city's population about 12 million live in slums. Between a third to almost forty percent of the population do not have access to clean drinking water and sanitation facility. Yet for over two years, the iss...

Post script Long before Tata Motor thought of developing a “People’s Car” costing about $2,500, there has been another kind of a car for the masses in socialist India. For over three decades, this indigenously built vehicle has been the mainstay of mass transportation in predominantly rural parts of north India. Reproduced here is my article, “India’s ‘Informal’ Car” , which was originally published on the editorial page in The Asian Wall Street Journal on 26 January 1995. And it remains one of my favourite articles, as it illustrates the tragedy and triumph of India. In “The Other Path,” Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto devoted a whole chapter to detailing how the informal sector provides cheap modes of transportation in poor countries. Here in India, the informal sector is pushing the idea to its limits. We probably have the only informal sector in the world manufacturing its own automobile. If one drives out of Delhi in any direction one is likely to encounter these hybrid vehic...