I first met Paul Samuelson in 1962, as a student at MIT. A decade later, I had the pleasure of co-authoring with him a paper on the Theory of Index Numbers (American Economic Review, 1974) and another in the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal (1984). I last met him a couple of years back, on a sidewalk in Belmont, Massachussets. He was driving down the street and stopped upon seeing me. I had my last cup of coffee with my great teacher, colleague, guru!
Samuelson’s main contribution to modern economics was to use advanced calculus to show that economics could be structured on clearly stated and observable behaviourial assumptions or axioms, objectives, and then by mathematical deduction, deriving economic laws that could be tested on real life statistical data. He thus made economics a subject of scientific inquiry to be truly called a science in the sense that propositions in economics could be “proved” with proofs just as theorems in mathematics were. Mathematical logic and rigour was all, and little else mattered.
Gone thus were the days of “Shakespearean” economics of Keynes and Galbraith’s art of expression. Felicity in English no more mattered. Mathematical methods took its place and thereby Samuelson globalised economics by enabling the little English-knowing scholars such as the Japanese to join in international discourse and collaboration in research and teaching. Economics thus exploded on the international scene and became fashionable.
Samuelson worked in two dimensions throughout his life. In one dimension, he spoke in homely English about the most complicated economic issues. He thus authored one of the most widely used college textbook in the history of American education and wrote a popular column for Newsweek on current economic topics. In another, he symbolised mathematical rigour of high order in economics. Between Economics, the textbook, and Foundations of Economic Analysis, his Harvard PhD thesis, the full range of Samuelson’s work was on display.
Despite his brilliance, jealousy and, some suspect, anti-Semitism of the late 30s made Harvard deny him promotion. His student, colleague and Nobel laureate Robert Solow jokingly said of the Harvard economics department of that time: “You could be disqualified for a job if you were either smart or Jewish or Keynesian. So what chance did this smart, Jewish, Keynesian have?”
Fresh from India, and armed with a BA Honours in Mathematics and Master’s in Mathematical Statistics, I first met Samuelson in his office in September 1962, wanting to be his student cross-registering in the most advanced mathematical economics course of MIT. Samuelson used to select only 20 students out of about 200 who applied every year, expecting to groom them as scholars. I wondered then whether I would be chosen.
But by then I was already a bit of a sensation in academia because as an MA student at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, I had published a research paper in the world’s then most prestigious journal Econometrica, demolishing PC Mahalanobis’ claim to fame called fractile graphical analysis, using integral calculus. Mahalanobis was invited by the editor to rebut my criticism, but had no answer.
In an early class of Samuelson, I interrupted his lecture to say, “You have one equation wrong, so you will not be able to prove the theorem”. There was stunned silence in class. Samuelson then walked to where I was seated and glowered, “What did you say?” I held my ground and offered to rectify what was a small careless mistake which all geniuses commit on the blackboard in class. He made me go to the blackboard and write out the correct equation which I did. He then said sternly: “See me after class.”
My classmates thought that was the end of me and one even said to me, “Have you got your return ticket to India?” But it was instead the beginning of a lifelong relationship. When I saw him after class, he said to my utter joy: “I think you and I should write a joint paper some day.” This we did 10 years later.
In 1968, Amartya Sen invited me to join the Delhi School of Economics as a full professor, stating in a hand-written letter that my “gaddi was being dusted”. I, therefore, spent three months in the summer of 1968 at the Delhi School of Economics as visiting professor, before returning to Harvard with the intention of winding up and joining as professor of economics at the Delhi School. But I did not realise then that the Left triumvirate of Sen, KN Raj and S Chakravarty had in the three months discovered that I was neither ideologically neutral nor soft like Jagdish Bhagwati, but hard anti-Left and wanted to dismantle the Soviet planning system in India, besides producing the atom bomb. So, when I arrived in India in late 1969, this triumvirate scuttled my ascending the dusted gaddi.
Samuelson was enraged when he heard this and perhaps felt empathy because of his own experience in the late 30s at Harvard, and urged me to return. When I returned to Harvard to teach in the 1971 summer, Samuelson told me, “Stay here and write a treatise on Index Numbers and you will be worthy of a prize.” But I was in a fighting mood and told him I would return.
Later, even after I joined politics in India, I continued to return to Harvard for the summer to teach, and got nothing but warmth and welcome from Samuelson each time. During the Emergency in India, Henry Rosovsky, another famous Harvard economist, became dean and he appointed me visiting professor for the year 1976-77. Mrs Gandhi sent an emissary to him to cancel my appointment! But Henry was no pushover. He maintained that I was still an IIT professor till the courts in India pronounced on it.
By now, Samuelson was convinced that I had responded to a higher call by going into Indian politics. He then encouraged me to fight on. He wrote a powerful column in the Newsweek against the Emergency and even signed a petition of Nobel laureates to the US president condemning the jailing without trial of 140,000 persons. It was most unusual for him, but it encouraged me to fight on. In the 1990s, after India ushered in reforms, Samuelson wrote me a letter expressing happiness that “at last, India has discovered economic growth”.
Once, at a get together, I called him my guru and explained the gurukul system of our rishis. He said: “Ah! That is what the US needs.” Samuelson was a rishi in the way he treated his chosen students and saw them through difficulties. He was a great and gentle guru.
