PRABHAKAR TIMBLE
Economics would have been a futile science had it not taken a departure from the celebrated treatise “An Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith which projected science as mainly concerned with the wealth-getting and wealth-using activities of men. Later, the focus in Economics turned to welfare instead of wealth, but, still, it was microeconomics which was gathering greater attention. It was the “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” of John Maynard Keynes that founded macro-economics and answered the challenge of the Great Depression of the 1930s. This thought propounded the necessity of governmental intervention in the economic system to restore growth and stability giving significance to fiscal strategy along with the monetary policy. This swing from free enterprise to a planned economy was immediately followed by the growth of ‘development economics’.
A three-volume treatise titled “Asian Drama”An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations” (1968) by a Nobel winning Swedish economist, Karl Gunnar Myrdal, made world poverty central to Economics. It’s a sea-change from what was enunciated by Adam Smith. The companion volume to the Asian Drama “The Challenge of World Poverty” (1970) by the same author emphasized production by the masses as opposed to mass production in dealing with the lives of the poor in the Third World nations. It was the milestone of the Human Development Index as opposed to Gross National Product as the measuring rod to evaluate and assess development that resulted in policy changes mainly in the Third World. Distributive justice and equity do not come automatically with economic growth is the crux of this research. The architect of this was a Pakistani economist, Mahbub ul Haq who wrote “The Poverty Curtain”Choices before the Third World”. It is said that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at an international meet of Heads of State quoted verbatim from this text without acknowledging the source.
Amartya Kumar Sen, Indian economist who won the Nobel in 1998 has drawn world acclaim for his research on poverty, justice and inequality. He read into poverty, ‘capacity deprivation’ and limits on freedom to pursue goals in life. In one word, poverty according to Amartya Sen is “unfreedom”. It results in a waste of talent. Otherwise, poverty has been mostly considered as lack of money and food. It is largely made synonymous with hunger.
Abhijit Banerjee is the second Indian economist to be awarded the Nobel. It is for evolving the research tool ‘Randomized Control Trials’ (RCTs). These are tools to analyse the efficacy of public spending on poverty alleviation so as to reorient public policy. RCTs explain what works and why and what does not work. The trio of Banerjee-Duflo-Kremer conducted such trials in what they term as ‘economic policy clinics’ to understand the impact of deworming school children (Kenya), providing a kilo of dal to bring children for immunization (Rajasthan), insurance for poor (Nigeria), cameras to reduce absenteeism etc. RCTs do not offer solutions. They test to enable choice of solutions and orient them for optimum results.
The research under RCTs indicates that small things can make a difference in the lives of the poor. It also reinforces the thought that the poor can tell us how to fight global poverty. In the book “Poor Economics”rethinking poverty and the ways to end it” by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo we are made aware of the reality that in the world’s poorest 50 countries where most of the poor live, the poor are as rational as anyone else. In fact, looking at how the poor live their lives with a meagre Rs 20 per person per day, the authors’ hint that “they have to be sophisticated economists just to survive”. With limited access to information, health plans and inaccessible institutions, they seem to have a native talent to secure the family’s future. Generally, in our planning, we make the mistake of not considering the poor as a source of knowledge.
Since our student days to now, we never heard of vitriol on Nobel laureates and character assassination of intellectuals. Their works would spark debate, their hypothesis would be subjected to critical appreciation, their findings would be re-verified for acceptance or rejection and the limitations of their research would spur further investigative studies. The most recent trends in India preferring personal attacks and on family, food habits, lifestyle, citizenship, marriage and divorce is tragic and definitely not good for India’s plunge into a technological and scientific
future.
A nation which does not respect its and worldwide intellectuals and creative men and women in fields of arts, sciences, innovations and business is bound to go regressive. Sadly, we are becoming a nation which desires to exclusively patronize men and women who sing praises of the democratically elected monarchs. The comment of the Union Commerce Minister that the voters of India have rejected the ideas of the Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee was done with the direct intent to trash and rubbish him and his findings. Rahul Sinha, BJP National Secretary opened the hidden heart and mind of the right-wing frontline and fringe groups reacting that having a foreigner second wife is probably a degree for award of Nobel. The dig at Abhijit Banerjee taken by Tathagata Roy, Governor of Meghalaya, is unbecoming of the gubernatorial post. Some sort of a healthy meeting with the Prime Minister and Modiji describing the Nobel laureate as being passionate towards human empowerment released the trap for the BJP and saved the face of the nation. It would be a national gain if the Prime Minister shares this ‘Mann Ki Baat’ with his flock to avoid innuendos of the type the world acclaimed intellectuals receive from his
admirers.
