FAQ of the Freedom Team

This draft document is work-in-progress

Question 1: Why is the Freedom Team of India (FTI) focusing on leaders and not on building its constituency (ground work)? Also, should we find supporters first or leaders first?

How are you going to win 300 seats?

Question:

“I am still struggling to see how we are actually going to win votes on the ground? To a poor peasant in UP/Bihar, all this talk of "Freedom" is pretty meaningless...Similarly to a shrewd, seasoned businessman in South Mumbai, all the talk of good governance sounds like platitudes.. If the response is that it is up to these 1500 outstanding leaders to do it, it brings me back to my first question... If all these 1500 people are so good, outstanding and well established that they can each win a seat on their own, why do they need us? What do we offer them that they don't have, other than maybe ideas? or policy prescriptions?”

“Let me be totally blunt...we might forever remain an internet discussion group unless we 1] start building resources/funds to deploy in future elections and/or 2] start developing our core support base (and I mean in the sense of a dedicated cadre of individuals who will support the "freedom" ideology and not necessarily individuals) This does not feel like an effort to develop a support base. How are we going to develop our cadre?”

A response:

Ground work generally means the following things:

a) organising a mass movement, such as a Dandi march or JP’s Total Revolution movement or the “Ram-Janmabhoomi Movement" of VHP/BJP or having a large mass of supporters either through policy compatibility or NGO work on the ground; or

b) having ‘ordinary’ party workers on the ground

The context to this question must first be clearly understood.

a) FTI is not a political party but a coalition of leaders united at this early stage only on common ground (policy); and

b) It does not have a base on the ground even though some of its members may have a support base.

This leads to the analysis outlined below.

Part 1: Party membership, organisation, workers, and nomination of seats by party workers

The concept of ‘ordinary party worker’ does not arise at this stage since FTI is not a party. Whether it becomes a party or not will be determined when 1500 people assemble and decide on next steps. At that stage, IF it is decided to convert this into a party, then, obviously, detailed mechanics of party membership and organisation will have to be worked out.

Yes, it will become crucial one day to have these structures, but under the current model, component parties of FTI can have their own structures and nomination procedures. FTI is merely a coordinating platform for action.

How many party workers are needed?

There are 593,731 villages in India. In 2004, 700,000 polling booths were established, usually 1-2 per village (larger villages have more). In other words, an average parliamentary constituency has 1272 booths. Each booth admits one observer (not all candidates offer observers) from the local village. So roughly 1500 strong supporters will be needed in each parliamentary constituency giving 550x1500 = 8 lakhs approximately. In other words, to get 550 people to have a realistic chance of winning elections we will need 8 lakh people to canvass for us.

It is quite reasonable, IF the FTI were to ever decide to become a political party, to have membership and structures such as the following:

Membership and nomination processes: FTI (as a political party) should identify these folks, nurture them and convince them to become equal members of our organization. Once these folks are on board we should ask them to choose, from amongst themselves, their own 500 candidates on the basis of One Member One Vote. That would be True Democracy. That is the way the Republicans and Democrats choose their candidates in America. That is the way Tories and Labour choose their candidates in England. We the 500 or 1500 members of the Freedom Team can only humbly offer our services to them, should they consider us fit to be their candidates, worthy of their support.

Formal organisation: Have one district governor who will be accountable for the development of the district. He will nominate block/taluka level supervisorsrs. All district governors should meet the national executive body once in a month. we need a strong organisation from the grassroots. There are two ways. Either we first have the national executive body who will elect the dist governors. Or, we go for block level first and rise to the national level. Our experience says, we must have a top governing body who will then percolate down to the lower level. Initially for two years or so, the task before the national council will be to have a ground level study and elect/appoint/nominate the lower rung supervisors. When, the plan is understood by all stake holders, we can declare the candidates for the elections.

Current “organisational”  model of FTI:

The talk of national organisational structures should wait till 1500 people have assembled. No structures should be formed in advance. Loose-knit Freedom Families are suggested, instead, or existing parties with their own structures, who federate into the FTI.

a) Find 1500 excellent leaders from across the entire country.

b) Let each of these leaders develop his or her own base through existing political or other groups or through Freedom Families (only if necessary) and support groups established locally.

c) Let all team members pass through the filter of training.

d) Let a major fund raising campaign be launched.

e) Let each member mobilise support for 3 years in the local constituency.

f) Let the state or other local teams select/ endorse one candidate per constituency depending on local support base. In other words, the nomination of candidates should be left to the local Freedom Families who are to be tasked with certifying both the quality of candidates and their local support base. The local candidate thus becomes a ‘franchisee’ and is funded and supported appropriately in his or her efforts.

In brief, let us find leaders first. The entire effort depends on the calibre of the leadership offered (not in one or two constituencies but in all 550, and with sufficient mobilisation and funding). There must be internal democracy, but only one chance to the people to select representatives: at the ballot box.

Part 2: Party organisation, party workers, and nomination of seats by party workers

Organising at the grassroots is very demanding, and so only such efforts will be put in which yield significant returns in terms of the objective of winning 300 seats in Parliament. Ground work will therefore need to be done very strategically, purely with a view to supporting the  leadership team.

Example	Cost	Benefit	Assessment
Village level activity: eg. establish a cooperate dairy in a village.	Enormous expense of time and money	A few people in the local area will get to know about this initiative	Very high cost, but very low return strategy.
Satyagraha or other local mobilisation	Enormous effort and coordination needed. Significant risk of being hijacked by violent people.	Can bring about awareness, but people are looking for policy leadership, not mere anger at the current system.	Very high risk and fairly expensive, but potentially low return strategy (in rare cases this may be viable).
Sharad Joshi's 2004 attempt (SBP) to contest national elections. SBP's approach was to rush headlong into the national  elections without building a policy platform or leadership team.	SBP (or its earlier avataar) put in a huge amount of ground work, eg. Sharad Joshi Shetkari Sangathan  had put in over  20 years of work. Millions of villagers in Maharashtra  were directly impacted by Sharad Joshi's work. He was known very widely. Roughly Rs.9-10 lakhs was raised in 2004 (including travel cost funding).	One seat in the Parliament (Rajya Sabha) in 2004 and 1 in the Maharashtra assembly.	SBP failed to generate a national momentum because Sharad Joshi was virtually the only leader willing to contest  elections; no planning, no communication, no leadership building. Just one man. The money raised for him could have been more productively used.
AASU’s movement	Huge effort and mobilisation for a number of years. Many people killed in the protests and marches. Severe retaliation on non-violent protestors by Congress I. Significant communal violence (Nellie).	AGP came to power in 1985 at the state level but with a very poor leadership team. No idea of what was needed in Assam. Very arrogant. Most became very corrupt.	Too expensive - lives lost. This highlights the importance of leadership selection and mentoring. Leadership and quality of planning is everything.

Implications:

a) Doing something on the  ground in a particular village will barely make a microscopic dent on the systematic changes needed in India’s governance.

b) There is unlikely to be a consensus  on what should be done on the ground that is sufficiently influential to help change India’s governance. Focusing on smaller issues will lead to a loss of focus.

c) Even very large movements do not usually deliver a national mandate. The last such movement was JP’s Total Revolution movement which caused significant unrest and led to a lot of violence. Large movements, if and when needed (which is unlikely), will have to be very carefully orchestrated and planned, to avoid injury to others and damage to property.

d) In brief, ground work on a significant scale is astronomically expensive and highly risky, and hence the cost-benefit doesn't usually add up.

Conclusion: Build leaders first. Then finalise a policy platform. Then discuss party formation and/ or ground work.

Comment from Sanjeev: “In brief, I do not deny the need for ground work or 'party' building etc. Anyone would be foolish to imagine that any group can gain 300 seats without considerable ground work and relevant apparatus of the 'party'. But I deny that FTI should commit to any of these things before assembling as a whole and formally agreeing to all these things. I differ on the starting point for such coordinated ground work or party building. I will not start till 1500 people are ready to contest elections under one banner. I've seen enough half-baked 'one-man' shows in India to not go down the path of sending down roots into 'organisation' and 'party building' at this stage. By all means think of and imagine the characteristics of a 'party' or the kinds of 'ground work' FTI should do. But we should not expect any funding or support at a national level unless 1500 high quality people can be assembled first.”

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