GETTING INDIA BACK ON TRACK
An action agenda for reform
Bibek Debroy, Ashley J Tellis, Reece Trevor (editors)
Random House India;
334+xii pages; Rs 499
One entirely predictable consequence of the unprecedented victory of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance five months ago is an avalanche of (unsolicited) advice on how to revive the stalled economy. The compendium of essays under review stands out in that crowded field for three reasons. First, its release was at 7, Race Course Road at the hands of the new prime minister soon after he assumed office; second, its contributors constitute a veritable Who's Who of the economic opinion space in the Indian media; third, its sponsors are global heavyweights in the advice business - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, supported by the GE Foundation, and leading individual philanthropists. If only I could add a fourth and far more important reason, that of it being outstanding!
Ashley J Tellis, a senior associate at Carnegie who has advised Republican administrations in the United States (and was much in evidence in media discussions during the prime minister's recent United States visit), says in his introduction that the attempt is to answer "the [inexorable] question of what must be done to recover the momentum when the new government takes office". His own analysis places the blame for India's "continuous subpar performance" squarely on its socialist orientation for the first 45 years of its independent existence, even as he says a twin legacy of that period, India's liberal democracy, held the country together against all odds. His conclusion? "India's unfortunate fling with socialism resulted in ... a mangled state that failed to produce not only growth but its enabling appurtenances as well ... Comprehensive reform ... is imperative." Even trainee editors of provincial papers write leaders replete with such wisdom these days, albeit with less imposing verbiage.
A galaxy of domain experts present their analyses of facets of India. Ila Patnaik on macro-balances, Surjit Bhalla on welfare state, Ashok Gulati on agriculture, Rajiv Kumar on manufacturing, Omkar Goswami on employment, Laveesh Bhandari on education, Rajiv Lall on infrastructure, Devesh Kapur on rule of law, Bibek Debroy on administration and C Raja Mohan on foreign policy and strategy contribute 10 of the 16 essays in the collection. They find the usual suspects: deficits gone haywire; mounting subsidies failing to achieve their stated objectives; inefficient markets and leaky public distribution systems choking agriculture; stagnating manufacturing hampered by inimical government policies and indifferent entrepreneurs; employment generation falling behind demand for jobs; misplaced priorities at all levels of education; stretched capacity and poor efficiency of infrastructure; corruption and procedural ineffectiveness affecting the rule of law; excessively centralised and risk-averse bureaucracy; and finally, inability to engage meaningfully with external powers large and small, possibly because of ideological demons.
The organisers of the volume had clearly asked the contributors not to stop at analysis, but also to provide solutions and strategies. This all of them diligently attempt. A quick sampler of the recommendations: counter-cyclical financial policy and government expenditure, prudent regulation; cash transfers as welfare measures in place of "rights"-based schemes; amending agriculture produce marketing committees for shorter, effective supply chains; easier land acquisition for industry and streamlined labour legislation; faster economic growth through employment-intensive activities; vision-informed education policies to improve quality and employability of the educated, along with more resources and greater community participation; rebooting railways and greater private participation in infrastructure; greater autonomy to the police and unclogging the justice delivery systems; simpler, fewer laws and their streamlined administration; "economy first" foreign policy and dextrous management of the United States and China interfaces, with greater emphasis on regional security.
To be fair, such a "treetops" listing of recommendations does not adequately reflect the nuanced approaches some of the contributors espouse. For example, Ms Patnaik forcefully makes the point that macroeconomic balances must be concerned with both surpluses as well as deficits, instead of merely focusing on the latter. That approach puts the government in the same situation as a subsistence farmer whose deficits are cumulative but surpluses are not, leading to a hand-to-mouth existence. The last few years of our vaunted economic management are eloquent testimony to the validity of this conclusion.
The reader has to trawl through oft-repeated arguments and data to get at such nuggets. That is not easy. And why could the editors not have instructed the copy desk that a volume aimed primarily at Indian readership must not be strewn with American spellings, which become irritants?
Professionals and lay readers alike would ask the question after reading the volume, "what did I learn that I did not already know?"; and they would not be entirely unjustified in doing so. The price of the book could buy a quarter's worth of issues of this or any other economic paper in India. That collection would have far greater content than the sum total of the wisdom in this collection, most likely the work of the same set of scholars, besides a lot of other relevant information and opinion.
Even at the height of the general election campaign, Mr Modi was prepared to give time at 5.30 a m in Gandhinagar to those wanting to offer suggestions, provided the caller came up with three workable ideas and restricted the discussion to 10 minutes. One wonders how many of the contributions here would have passed that test.
An action agenda for reform
Bibek Debroy, Ashley J Tellis, Reece Trevor (editors)
Random House India;
334+xii pages; Rs 499
One entirely predictable consequence of the unprecedented victory of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance five months ago is an avalanche of (unsolicited) advice on how to revive the stalled economy. The compendium of essays under review stands out in that crowded field for three reasons. First, its release was at 7, Race Course Road at the hands of the new prime minister soon after he assumed office; second, its contributors constitute a veritable Who's Who of the economic opinion space in the Indian media; third, its sponsors are global heavyweights in the advice business - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, supported by the GE Foundation, and leading individual philanthropists. If only I could add a fourth and far more important reason, that of it being outstanding!
Ashley J Tellis, a senior associate at Carnegie who has advised Republican administrations in the United States (and was much in evidence in media discussions during the prime minister's recent United States visit), says in his introduction that the attempt is to answer "the [inexorable] question of what must be done to recover the momentum when the new government takes office". His own analysis places the blame for India's "continuous subpar performance" squarely on its socialist orientation for the first 45 years of its independent existence, even as he says a twin legacy of that period, India's liberal democracy, held the country together against all odds. His conclusion? "India's unfortunate fling with socialism resulted in ... a mangled state that failed to produce not only growth but its enabling appurtenances as well ... Comprehensive reform ... is imperative." Even trainee editors of provincial papers write leaders replete with such wisdom these days, albeit with less imposing verbiage.
A galaxy of domain experts present their analyses of facets of India. Ila Patnaik on macro-balances, Surjit Bhalla on welfare state, Ashok Gulati on agriculture, Rajiv Kumar on manufacturing, Omkar Goswami on employment, Laveesh Bhandari on education, Rajiv Lall on infrastructure, Devesh Kapur on rule of law, Bibek Debroy on administration and C Raja Mohan on foreign policy and strategy contribute 10 of the 16 essays in the collection. They find the usual suspects: deficits gone haywire; mounting subsidies failing to achieve their stated objectives; inefficient markets and leaky public distribution systems choking agriculture; stagnating manufacturing hampered by inimical government policies and indifferent entrepreneurs; employment generation falling behind demand for jobs; misplaced priorities at all levels of education; stretched capacity and poor efficiency of infrastructure; corruption and procedural ineffectiveness affecting the rule of law; excessively centralised and risk-averse bureaucracy; and finally, inability to engage meaningfully with external powers large and small, possibly because of ideological demons.
The organisers of the volume had clearly asked the contributors not to stop at analysis, but also to provide solutions and strategies. This all of them diligently attempt. A quick sampler of the recommendations: counter-cyclical financial policy and government expenditure, prudent regulation; cash transfers as welfare measures in place of "rights"-based schemes; amending agriculture produce marketing committees for shorter, effective supply chains; easier land acquisition for industry and streamlined labour legislation; faster economic growth through employment-intensive activities; vision-informed education policies to improve quality and employability of the educated, along with more resources and greater community participation; rebooting railways and greater private participation in infrastructure; greater autonomy to the police and unclogging the justice delivery systems; simpler, fewer laws and their streamlined administration; "economy first" foreign policy and dextrous management of the United States and China interfaces, with greater emphasis on regional security.
To be fair, such a "treetops" listing of recommendations does not adequately reflect the nuanced approaches some of the contributors espouse. For example, Ms Patnaik forcefully makes the point that macroeconomic balances must be concerned with both surpluses as well as deficits, instead of merely focusing on the latter. That approach puts the government in the same situation as a subsistence farmer whose deficits are cumulative but surpluses are not, leading to a hand-to-mouth existence. The last few years of our vaunted economic management are eloquent testimony to the validity of this conclusion.
The reader has to trawl through oft-repeated arguments and data to get at such nuggets. That is not easy. And why could the editors not have instructed the copy desk that a volume aimed primarily at Indian readership must not be strewn with American spellings, which become irritants?
Professionals and lay readers alike would ask the question after reading the volume, "what did I learn that I did not already know?"; and they would not be entirely unjustified in doing so. The price of the book could buy a quarter's worth of issues of this or any other economic paper in India. That collection would have far greater content than the sum total of the wisdom in this collection, most likely the work of the same set of scholars, besides a lot of other relevant information and opinion.
Even at the height of the general election campaign, Mr Modi was prepared to give time at 5.30 a m in Gandhinagar to those wanting to offer suggestions, provided the caller came up with three workable ideas and restricted the discussion to 10 minutes. One wonders how many of the contributions here would have passed that test.
The writer taught at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and helped set up the Institute of Rural Management, Anand