Freedom Caravan aims to bring young people together to explore these pressing questions, and encourage discussion and debate about the foundations of a free, prosperous, and just society. In the past two years, we have interacted with over 4,000 passionate youth from 6 states across the country. Similar programs have been organized by sister-organizations across the globe in countries such as Brazil, Turkey, Germany, and Kyrgyzstan.
Freedom Caravan centres upon an interactive dialogue on the chosen theme: (Who Creates Wealth?) The aim of the discussion is to encourage participants to think critically, and encourage an open, inviting, and respectful atmosphere, which will allow students to freely ask questions, and contribute to a constructive conversation. Through these interactions, we hope to inspire future leaders from the region to participate in the intellectual discourse that will shape their lives, and become change agents in their communities.

Opening Activity: World’s Smallest Political Quiz

The World’s Smallest Political Quiz ranks students’ attitudes toward freedom on two scales, personal and economic freedom. Participants’ answers are used to categorise them into five categories: Authoritarian, Leftist, Conservative, Centrist, and Liberal. The quiz has proven to be a very useful tool in engaging students, sparking interesting conversations on the role of the state and civil society, and prompting them to attend the following discussion. An online version of the quiz is available on our website.

Central Discussion: Why is India Poor?
This lecture designed by Parth J Shah, President, Centre for Civil Society seeks to:
    1. Debunk perennial myths about the causes of poverty and prosperity, and develop individuals’ ability to use reasons, data, and evidence when thinking about public policy, and;
    2. More fundamentally, convince the participants about an approach to analysing this type of question and gain a pattern of thinking that will help them assess different possible answers to these kinds of questions until they get down to the root causes.
The monograph of the original lecture is available online on our website.