Rajni Bakshi, whose book Bapu Kuti inspired Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Swades, now explores free market dynamics through her work Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom
Long before the current economic meltdown became public knowledge, this journalist-turned-author was busy exploring whether free market was the only way forward for world economies. And now, with her book Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom: For a market culture beyond greed and fear, Rajni Bakshi is all set to question conventional market wisdom, even as a worldwide recession recedes into the background.
“The market economy can be vigorous and productive, but also amazingly foolhardy and degenerate. The world is now more engaged in working out how mindless markets can be made to function better with the help of other institutions,” says Bakshi, who has been writing in a wide variety of English and Hindi newspapers and magazines for the last three decades. Bakshi says that on November 9, 2009, it will be 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, after which globalisation can said to have been truly ushered in. “Twenty years after that epoch-making event, the question which arises is whether free market is the only way ahead or can there be different kinds of free markets, leaning greatly towards sustainable development? Also, my book raises the question whether the free market should be allowed to become supreme and all-powerful?” says the author, whose book Bapu Kuti inspired the motion picture Swades, starring Shah Rukh Khan and directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar.
“Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom is packed with stories about people who diagnosed the fatal flaws in an economic system driven by greed and fear, long before the present meltdown. From Wall Street icon George Soros and VISA card designer Dee Hock, we get an insider critique of the malaise. Creators of community currencies and others, like the father of microfinance, Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus, explore how money can work differently. The Dalai Lama and Ela Bhatt demonstrate that it is possible to compete compassionately and nurture a more mindful market culture,” says this Homi Bhabha Fellow.
“The book takes the reader from the ancient Greek Agora, Indian chaupal, and gift culture of Native Americans onto present day Wall Street to illuminate how the market can serve society rather than being its master,” asserts Bakshi, whose earlier books include The Long Haul: The Bombay Textile Workers Strike; The Dispute over Swami Vivekananda’s Legacy; Bapu Kuti: Journeys in rediscovery of Gandhi and An Economics for Well-Being.
