What is Swarajya?

Swarajya is a 61-year-old independent media start-up. We are a new-age media company with a rich and storied legacy.

What is this rich and storied legacy?

In 1956, journalist Khasa Subba Rau with the patronage of C Rajagopalachari "Rajaji", India’s last Governor-General, freedom fighter and statesman, hailed by Mahatma Gandhi as his "conscience keeper", launched a weekly magazine called Swarajya.

It was intended to convey the founders' quest to translate the joy of freedom from foreign rule into complete freedom as defined and promised by the preamble of our Constitution.

Swarajya represented the first coherent intellectual response to Nehruvian socialism and the ever expanding big state in the newly independent India.

What did Swarajya stand for?

Despite the odds stacked against it, and long before it became fashionable, Swarajya championed individual liberty, private enterprise, minimal state and cultural rootedness. Explaining the magazine's mission in its early days, Rajaji wrote:


So, what is the new Swarajya or Swarajya 2.0 about?

Rajaji's words remain as true as ever, especially now! Swarajya is an authoritative voice of reason representing the liberal centre-right point of view.

In its second coming, Swarajya remains committed to the ideals of individual liberty unmediated by the state or any other institution, freedom of expression and enterprise, national interest and India’s vast and ancient cultural heritage.

Swarajya is a big tent for liberal right of centre discourse that reaches out, engages and caters to the new India in a manner that’s not arcane, abstruse, arrogant or self-referencing.

The founders of the 21st century Swarajya merely see themselves as custodians of Rajaji's legacy.

Why Swarajya now?

The battles that Rajaji and his colleagues fought through the pages of Swarajya are relevant, in fact more so, even today.

Irrespective of the changes in government, India remains by and large a populist nanny state, where the state makes choices on behalf of the citizens, and socialism permeates most layers of policymaking. This has resulted in our institutions and India itself remaining weak socially, politically, economically, and culturally rootless.

With the world's largest number of aspiring young citizens, it would be a travesty if India’s tryst with destiny were to continue to be subverted. The world's attention is now on India and this time it must not squander the opportunity to give all its citizens a quality and dignity of life that they deserve.

It is time to break free of the ideological shackles of the past and gain 'Swarajya'.

What are Swarajya's focus areas?

Swarajya focuses on what we have identified as the social, political, economic and cultural (what we refer to as SPEC) life of India.

So, how is this being done?

Swarajya has two avatars – a digital daily and a monthly flagship print magazine. It reaches out, informs, engages and energises the concerned and thinking reader through easy-to-read commentaries, analyses, research, satire and opinions. It uses tools of the 21st century, like tablets and smartphones, to provide daily commentaries, blogs, insta-opinions, interactive multimedia content, podcasts, videos and lots of other web exclusives. All this in addition to the monthly print version.

What is Swarajya's mission?

Swarajya's primary focus is to channelise the positive impulses of an overwhelmingly young nation towards confidence and punch commensurate to its true heft – socially, politically, economically and culturally. Swarajya is at the vanguard of the new Indian renaissance.

Our Advisory Board

Swarajya's Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) guides, criticises and provides a strong intellectual bulwark to the organisation. Its members provide strategic advice and insights to the editorial team on ways to nurture an intellectually diverse and vibrant liberal centre-right conversation.

Current members of the EAB include:

Jerry Rao: A strong advocate of liberal centre right thought, Rao is the founder and former chief executive officer of IT giant Mphasis, and was head of Citibank's Global Technology Development Division. He is currently the executive chairman of Value and Budget Housing Corporation, an affordable housing venture, which he founded in 2010.

Surjit Bhalla: A Princeton economist, Bhalla has been associated in the past with Rand Corporation, the Brookings Institution and the World Bank. He runs the emerging markets asset management firm Oxus.

Swapan Dasgupta: An Oxford historian, Dasgupta is a veteran journalist and an authoritative voice from the Indian right. He is a Padma Bhushan and a Rajya Sabha MP.

Manish Sabharwal: Chairman of Teamlease Services, India’s largest staffing and training firm, Sabharwal is a Wharton MBA. He is a member of the board of the Reserve Bank of India.

Is Swarajya affiliated to or does it support any political parties?

No. Swarajya is a fiercely independent and a 'big tent' of right liberal ideas. We are not politically partisan.

We stand for certain principles such as individual liberty and enterprise, free markets, a small state, openness and cultural rootedness, that is mindful of India's diversity. It is not a mouthpiece of any political party or individual.

Of course, our commentaries may at times be supportive of some whose convictions converge with ours. But, as they say, retweets do not equal endorsements.

Swarajya - IPSMF Content Commissioning Agreement

The Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation (IPSMF) has provided financial support to Swarajya for the purpose of reporting and publishing stories of public interest. The IPSMF does not take any legal or moral responsibility whatsoever for the content published by Swarajya on its website (swarajyamag.com) or on any of its other platforms.