It has been three weeks and it still continues to pour with incessant vigour. The Sen-Bhagwati debate is unending and elusive. It touches on too many topics from economic ideologies to political orientation to personal connections. The media continues to comment with frenzy and politicians continue extending their little understanding of politics to their non-existent understanding of economic nuances thus drawing political generalisations and then condemn the economists.
The final verdict is long overdue. At the pace (that of two 80 year olds) this debate seems to be progressing with, the last word seems like a highly unlikely phenomenon in the near future. I imagine how convenient it would be to bring all these viewpoints to the table and consider. Probably have a dinner table conversation. Jagdish Bhagwati, Arvind Panagariya and perhaps Vivek Dehejia on the right side of the table seated elegantly. Panagariya prefers to have Gujarati food tonight to make a point. On the left side Amartya Sen, Jean Dreze and Mihir Sharma order some South Asian dishes in clear defiance of Panagariya’s expression. Somewhere around the table there is Sagrika Ghose sifting through the pages of Bhagwati’s and Sen’s books preparing herself for a conversation where she sounds intelligent. Then there is Manu Joseph who prefers to sit with his legs on the table, greatly offending the Harvard/Cambridge/Columbia/whateverelse Professors’ western sense of etiquette. At the head of the table, of course, is Twitter, changing its economical stance every other second.
Like most arguments, this one, at the dinner table begins with a twitter update as well, a reference to The Economist’s review of An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions. There is talk of the lip service to growth and the defence coming from Sen justifying himself as an advocate of growth ‘but not at the cost of development’. Dehejia steps in to speak for his “own great guru”( Bhagwati) and predicts that the Government will have to eventually turn into a growth-oriented “reform programme to stave off economic catastrophe, as happened in 1991.” Sen whose only counter attack is defence as usual, chuckles and says that he has been wrongly labelled as someone who is “against economic reforms and wants the liscene raj to come back.”
Someone brings up the word redistribution and Sen again goes on to explain himself. Sagrika Ghosh experiences a moment of Deja Vu as she understands the real meaning of the word explained but unable to grasp the concept she diverts the conversation towards a direction she can keep up with. She asks Sen “There is the much doubted Narendra Modi model of governance. What do you make of that model of governance? Do you approve of it?”
This is Mihir Sharma’s cue for an abrupt entry into the conversation; He states that the debate has become an “increasingly unseemly and uninformative spectacle.” He explains that Bhagwati’s ideologies are not right of centre per se and Sen’s are similarly not left of centre. There is the discussion about minor differences that boil down to sequencing of events. Track II reforms after Track II or vice versa.
What comes first? Deregulations and growth that will empower the poor and the rest to educate themselves and up their lifestyle on their own or state led social reforms with emphasis on health and education and development which will lead to an educated dynamic workforce, capable of inducing growth in the economy. The co-authors jump in here and site Indian examples (Kerela vs Gujarat). Twitter seems to come alive at this. Chandan Mitra, Manish Tiwari, Shashi Tharoor start exercising their freedom of expression and their belief in the social media.
Someone mentions food security bill and thus comes about the topic of Sen’s tendency to seduce the reader with romanticism of poverty and state-sponsored entitlement-based public schemes. Manu Joseph jumps in to drop some irrelevant but witty reference to Arundhati Roy and Eduardo Galeano (unfortunately mentioning and comparing the former with the latter in a single sentence. Which makes as much sense as the Mother Theresa-Sen metaphor) and quotes a bit of Eduardo Galeano. This finally makes for some good reading.
Bhagwati is likely to get impatient by this time, a trait that Sen wishes the poor of India would express more often. He, Bhagwati starts name-dropping and Dreze mentions his position as a member of Sonia Gandhi’s NAC. Twitter comes up with Niranjan Rajadhyaksha update and both Sen and Bhagwati quickly state that they do not support any party. It is a different matter that Bhagwati has been a friend of Manmohan Singh since about 60 years and Sen is UPA’s only qualified and widely followed advocate of the Food Security Bill.
At this point all the entities on the table turn to Manmohan Singh. I apologise for having forgotten to mention that he has been a part of this dinner since the beginning, you might agree with me when I say it is easy to do so. Singh is calm in demeanour; he surveys the room and simply nods in agreement. Everyone assumes his concurrence to their respective viewpoints.
Bhagwati starts describing the breakfast he shared with Rahul Gandhi the other day, Sen orders for some strong tea “Indian Style.” Manu Joseph spots a Nandana Sen meme and smiles at another devious idea for a column.
Mihir Sharma and Vivek Dehejia assume their duties as journalists/analysts and attempt to conclude. One ends on a note of wistful thinking, a fantasy about a crisis that would force the state to subscribe to Bhagwati’s ideologies to survive. The other ends it on a pragmatic note emphasising on the finer details of their ideologies. But no one can top Manu Joseph’s last word as he talks about India’s economic policies that diverted expenditure towards science and warfare technology development instead of welfare schemes by saying “And soon, when India goes to Mars, there will be much joy with commercials in between. It was partly malnutrition’s fault then that it was simply not as sexy as space.”
Drashti Thakkar
TYBMM Journalism
M11058
The Squibbler 