This February, Indian Liberals, our online archive of libertarian thought histories in India, brought together academics, thought leaders and scholars, for a day-long conference on the relevance of the Swatantra Party and the future of liberal politics in India. Hosted in partnership with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, the conference consisted of three gripping panels with eminent speakers such as Vasanthi Srinivasan (author of ‘Gandhi's Conscience Keeper: C. Rajagopalachari and Indian Politics’), Gurcharan Das, (author of ‘India Unbound’), R Jagannathan (Editorial Director, Swarajya), amongst other academics and thought leaders The drew an engaged audience of 350, including young scholars, students , lawyers, academics, journalists, and political commentators.
The day-long conference also marked the launch of 27,000 original and previously unpublished papers of the Swatantra Party that had been procured by Centre for Civil Society, as part of the Indian Liberals project. An exhibition of these papers was curated and the documents were handed over to the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi for preservation and to make them accessible for the generations of scholars to come.
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