[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...

REIMAGINING INDIA
and South-East Asia to make the correct
conclusions about the role of state and
markets and to have the pragmatic approach
to use both. Instead what we have
today is simplistic journalistic comparisons
to other economies and often to
only advance the point that in other cases
cited, they have been more market
friendly than the Indian state has been.
What one witnesses, especially in the
popular press and in TV business programmes,
are almost illiterate comparisons
by journalists to other countries and
societies in East and South-East Asia
without any reference to their history or
a deeper understanding of these societies.
The comparisons are like frozen in
time and are snapshots of the present
without any reference to how they have
come there. Unfortunately academics
also, instead of making up for their lack
of knowledge of Asian societies, in an
incestuous manner quote these journalistic
comparisons when for example there
is opposition to the entry of TNCs to the
retail trade or to the coercive attempts to
deprive people of their land and force
SEZs down the throat of unsuspecting
citizens. In contrast what we seriously
and urgently need is the building of institutional
capacity to study comparative
development between India and other
developing countries especially in the
Asia and Pacific region and focused on
different aspects of economy, society,
social policy and in general the shaping
of public policy. In a sense the old institutional
arrangements that exist in most
of our universities in the form of area
studies and associated centres and departments
may have to be revisited and
both existing capacity strengthened as
well as new capacity created.
An important dimension of generating
knowledge on comparative development
is to link with governance and understanding
governance related issues. Keeping
in line with what has been said earlier
in this paper about the centrality of governance
to ensure growth that can be socially,
culturally and ecologically sustained,
research and studies need to be
done not only comparing India and Asian
countries but also comparisons within
India between regions and states. Keynes
had held that, “the theory of economics
does not furnish a body of settled conclusions
immediately applicable to policy
Unfortunately academics, instead of making up for their
lack of knowledge of Asian societies, in an incestuous
manner quote journalistic simplistic comparisons down the
throat of unsuspecting citizens
and it is a method rather than a doctrine,
an apparatus of the mind, a technique of
thinking”. Comparative development, in
contemporary times, almost two decades
after the emergence of globalization, is “a
technique of thinking’. Keynes was only
echoing Marshall who in his Principle of
Economics had long ago held the view,
“economics is not a body of concrete
wealth but an engine for the discovery of
concrete truth”. Economists and social
scientists in our country have much work
to do to study and learn from other societies
and in order to ensure that economic
progress and development in our country,
means a full human life for all our citizens
not a situation of vulgar wealth mocking
the inhuman conditions of existence that
is the day to day reality for a very large
number of our citizens. Only then India
will be truly and respected for its greatness
and the extraordinary cultural and
philosophical wealth that it possesses.
Otherwise, we will continued to be seen
as a nation of hypocrites (even if no one
for politeness does not say this to our face)
and no amount of nationalistic jingoism
and fanatical cultural nationalism will
change our image or the situation we are
in as a nation. It is therefore time that
middle class intelligentsia, academics and
intellectuals in India came to grips with
this reality than delude themselves with
false images of greatness.
References
• Sukhamoy Chakravarty, ‘Writings on
Development, with an Introduction by
Mihir Rakshit’, Oxford University
Press, Delhi, 1997
• Dreze, Jean and Amartya Sen, ‘India:
Economic Development and Social
Opportunity’, Oxford University Press,
Delhi, 1995
• Dreze, Jean and Amartya Sen (eds),
‘Indian Development: Regional Perspectives’,
Oxford University Press,
Delhi, 1996
• Amartya Sen, ‘Theory and Practice of
Development’, in ‘Indias economic Reforms
and Development-Essays for
Manmohan Singh’, Isher Judge Ahluwalia
and I.M.D.Little (eds), Oxford
University Press, 1998
• Amaresh Bagchi, ‘Role of Planning and
the Planning Commission in the New
Indian Economy: case for a Review’,
Economic and Political Weekly, Bombay,
November 3, 2007.
22 THE IIPM THINK TANK