Independent Women’s Forum is pleased to announce that Bhuvana Anand and Baishali Bomjan, who founded and run a nonprofit dedicated to economic freedom in India, as the latest entries into our popular series of Champion Women profiles.
Too often developing nations rely on socialism or other tired old economic ideas that hold back what might otherwise be dynamic economies.
Anand and Bomjan founded the nonprofit Trayas—the name is Sanskrit for independent—to promote a liberty movement alternative to a government-dominated economy. The New Delhi-based nonprofit focuses on India’s legacy laws that prohibit women from fully taking full advantage of opportunities.
Anand grew up in an entrepreneurial family but for Bomjan's conservative family "the government was the supreme power in everything; they believed that everything government did was for the greater good of the people."
Now, they are on the same page about economic freedom.
“The goal ultimately is more freedom than yesterday through brick-by-brick reform,” Bomjan says.
“The most important things to me are freedom of conscience and freedom of action, right?” Anand tells IWF. “It is important that people be able to rise economically. You are able to do what you believe you should, the right things for the right reasons. That’s what’s important about the Liberty Movement."
“I come from a society where there is a lot of poverty. There’s poverty all around. I lose sleep over that kind of deprivation. It’s not right. The biggest reason for this poverty is that people are sometimes unable to use their abilities, and sometimes they lack the willingness to work hard and improve their lot. Changing this is only possible if people have the freedom to work and freedom of conscience.”
Anand and Bomjan are especially eager to promote economic agency for women, whose full participation in the economy is often hampered by legacy laws.
Speaking with Anand and Bomjan, I was reminded just how much we have in common with freedom fighters in places like India.
We know that you will enjoy meeting these two women who are promoting prosperity through freedom.
