The Sen-Bhagwati Conundrum

There is a popular joke that God created economists to make weather forecasters look good. However, despite the amount of popular ridicule that economists and their models face in popular public discourse, especially in the aftermath of every major economic crisis, economists have contributed tremendously towards debates on crucial public policy issues that impact the lives of billions of people. India was witness to one such debate in the middle of 2013 as two prominent Indian-origin economists, Prof. Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati pushed their ideas regarding India’s development and growth through their latest books, newspaper columns and newsroom debates.

Jean Drèze’s book with Sen ‘An Uncertain Glory’ and Bhagwati’s book with Arvind Panagariya ‘India’s Tryst with Destiny’ brought an economic debate into our living rooms like never before. However, with the media’s inherent tendency to find binaries and simplifications, a lot of the intricacies of the debate presented in the respective books were lost to those who didn’t read them. While Sen came across as an anti-growth redistributionist, Bhagwati and Panagariya were portrayed as bigoted proponents of what has come to be known as the ‘Gujarat Model’, an economic system that apparently pushes the agenda of growth above all else. A close reading of the two books by this author has revealed that both these popular perceptions are incorrect, even in essence.

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THE LONG RUN.

Why I am Not Looking Forward to Pujos

Three decades and more of CPI(M) rule in Bengal has left Calcutta (I prefer the name over the post-colonial Kolkata which was the Bengali pronunciation anyway) a shadow of a metropolitan city. More than three years ago, I had migrated to this city from the cosmopolitan environs of Shillong in search of better academic opportunities. Better opportunities I certainly did get, and am grateful. However, over the course of these years, the city has assimilated me and I have assimilated the city. Confirmation towards the same lies in the fact that I am cribbing about the city in puro Bangali style today.

Having lived in a small city throughout my childhood and adolescence, and then spent a significant amount of time in a metropolitan city, I suppose I am well placed to say that Calcutta now resembles a giant small city today. Small city, of course, in terms, of the advanced opportunities for growth that the city affords its citizens. I would have many sympathisers among my readers if I rhetorically stated that ‘nothing happens in Calcutta‘. Indignants Calcuttans may point at the recent Poets of the Fall concert or simply say that ‘amra alada’ (we are different). But that does not discount the fact that the lack of industrial activity in the state has left its once-proud commercial hub of a capital rather insignificant. In its place, upstarts like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune have run away on the fast lane towards claiming themselves as one of India‘s few metros.

The problems are to do with faulty economic policy, among others. To maintain a false sense of empathy towards the teeming poor of the state, the CPI(M) embarked on an irresponsible spree of populism. Consider the transportation scene in Calcutta today. The last bus fare hike took place on July 1, 2009, when a litre of diesel would cost Rs 35.03. A typical bus can take you from one end of the city to the other for not much more than Rs. 8. Which is great to hear, but then, fuel prices haven’t exactly been stagnant over the past few years. They have risen steadily to Rs. 44.76 now, a rise of 28% in three years. But fares have remained stagnant under pressure from governments not having the balls to take hard decisions. Instead, bus operators have been subsidised for years at the cost of who else, the public exchequer! I would have even accepted this elaborate process of progressive income redistribution had its economic fundamentals been sound. On the other hand, West Bengal today has an astronomical debt of Rs. 1,92,000 crores (as in 2011). The cost of populism fed to the masses in the name of socialism, you might say.

Obama’s Support for Same-Sex Marriage: A Watershed or a Footnote?

 

When US President Barack Obama finally articulated his thoughts on same-sex marriage, moving from sympathy to support for the cause, many saw it as a watershed in the movement to accord equal rights to the LGBT community. Indeed, several commentators saw it as the rightful conclusion of the civil rights movement of half a century ago.

Rainbow flag. Symbol of gay pride. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

However, although the symbolic importance can hardly be overemphasised, Obama’s comment means very little practically in the broader struggle for the rights of same-sex couples. Even in the United States, more than thirty states – North Carolina recently becoming the 31st – have legislated to define marriage as the union of a man with a woman, and nothing else. Obama’s comments themselves have served to polarise the election scenario in that country, many of the deciding ‘swing’ states now expected to move decidedly towards the anti-gay rights Republicans.

When the American society, often considered as a fountainhead of civil liberty, is unwilling to accept and incorporate the LGBT community as equal citizens, little needs be told about the attitudes of governments and civil societies in other nations. Indeed, as of today, there are only eight countries that have legislated to legalise same-sex marriage, five of which are European, the others being South Africa, Canada and Argentina. In contrast, nearly thirty countries have laws which ban such marriage. Every other country does not recognise such unions despite not criminalising them.

Putting Underprivileged Students Into College Classrooms: A Market Approach

(This article was originally written for Youth Ki Awaaz)

Children, they say, are the future of a nation. If that be true, India’s potential is unmatched across the world. We have one of the largest and at the same time youngest populations. So is the future one happy story for India? Er, not really. Poverty is widespread in our country despite the gains made through six decades of planning. Although the Government would tell us that one in three persons is poor, this figure isn’t a reliable estimate of the number of Indians who will grow up without access to what modern civilisation considers basic needs: health care, sanitation and education. The World Bank figure of more than one in two Indians suffering from multidimensional poverty tells a more accurate story of the structural constraints facing children in India today.

india calcutta bookstore (Photo credit: FriskoDude)

With more than half of our population poor, and relatively high birth rates among the poor in India, nearly three-fifths of India’s children are born in underprivileged households. And their chances to lead an educated, dignified life with economic and social freedom are stunted to say the least. As a nation, it is imperative upon us to allow all our children to access basic social infrastructure like good education and gain the capabilities that will arm them enough to contribute positively towards the development of themselves, their society and the country. As of today, this aim is just that: an aim. Nearly 60 per cent of children hailing from underprivileged backgrounds drop out of school and have very little chances of going to college, forget completing a course there. Poverty, which ushers in the necessity to work and earn a living from a very early age, is the predominant factor behind this state of affairs.

This leads us to the question as to what we can do to change the ground realities. What indeed are the stumbling blocks that contribute to our abysmally low percentage of college graduates and what steps need be taken to address the problem? The approach I’ll be taking is one that attempts to enhance the freedoms people, including poor people, enjoy rather than restrict their options in order to achieve the same goal.