Shiv Khera


Shiv Khera is an Indian author, activist and professional speaker. He launched a movement against caste-based reservation in India, founded an organization called Country First Foundation, and started the Bhartiya Rashtravadi Samanta Party. In 2004, he lost in a bid as an independent candidate for the South Delhi constituency in India's general election. He also filed several public interest lawsuits in the Indian Supreme Court and unsuccessfully contested the country's 2009 general election.

Early life

Khera was born in a business family that operated coal mines, which were eventually nationalized by the Indian government. In his early years, he worked as a car washer, a life insurance agent, and a franchise operator before becoming a motivational speaker. While working in the United States, he was inspired by a lecture delivered by Norman Vincent Peale and claims to follow Peale's motivational teachings.

Books

Khera published his first book You Can Win in 1998. Subsequent books that Khera authored include: Living With Honor, Freedom Is Not Free, and You can Sell.
When Freedom Is Not Free was published, Amrit Lal, a retired Indian civil servant, accused Khera of plagiarism, alleging that content from that book directly came from his own book India Enough Is Enough, published 8 years earlier. Additionally, he found that numerous anecdotes, jokes and quotes in Khera's other books were also used without acknowledging proper sources. Khera countered that he took notes and inspirations from numerous sources, and that he was unable to keep track of all of them. Lal finally accepted an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed sum of money, which he said he would donate to the Missionaries of Charity.

Activism and politics

Khera founded Country First Foundation, a social activism organisation whose mission is "to ensure freedom through education and justice". In 2004, he stood as an independent candidate from the South Delhi constituency in Indian general elections and "lost badly". In 2008, he started the Bharatiya Rashtravadi Samanata Party. During 2014 polls in India, he supported the Bhartiya Janata Party and campaigned for Lal Krishna Advani, a senior member of the party. Khera has also filed several public interest lawsuits in the Indian Supreme Court, and he unsuccessfully contested the 2009 general election in India on an anti-corruption platform.