Amartya Sen vs Bhagwati: Who is right in the debate on Gujarat-Kerala growth models?
The 79-year-old's detractors led by Jagdish Bhagwati question his intellectual honesty and the quality of his works. ET probes the relevance of Sen.In a polarised debate the truth gets buried somewhere, says Kunal Sen, professor of development economics and policy at Manchester University. Pankaj Ghemawat, Harvard University alumnus and a professor of global strategy at Barcelona-based IESE Business School, says such "provocations" weren't unexpected.
Angus Deaton, professor of economics and international affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, finds it very amusing. "Another eruption in a war that seems to have been going on for a long time," he says.
Martha Nussbaum, a Chicago University professor, refused to comment on this "debate" that the US-based academic says has become "boring and uninteresting". And Pranab Bardhan, professor of Graduate School, University of California at Berkeley, doesn't want to "join the media circus in India that is blowing up the relatively small and perfectly normal differences of opinion between two respectable economists".
Clearly, the spotlight is on economists Amartya Sen, 79, and Jagdish Bhagwati, 78, whose rivalry has stirred a political storm in India. In a January 2 interview to The Economic Times, Bhagwati and his co-author Arvind Panagariya said they admired Gujarat chief ministerNarendra Modi for his economic policies.
For them, he stood for what they called the Gujarat model of development, which they reckoned was superior to the contrasting Kerala model of development. The two economists described the Gujarat model as a metaphor for a primarily growth and private entrepreneurshipdriven development and the Kerala model for a primarily redistribution and state-driven development.
For his part, Sen had upheld what he calls the "Kerala experience" — high social spending resulting in growth — as a role model for other states to follow. The Nobel Prize-winning Harvard University professor is of the view that the Gujarat development model suffered from weaknesses on the social side and could not be considered a success.
Bhagwati and Panagariya often hit out at Sen for his "avuncular" approach of not agreeing to a public debate on the issue. Sen had told ET: "Jagdish had provoked me many times. But I have never ever uttered a word." Not any more.
The Fighter's Club
"I hope it was the first and the last time I responded to his attack," Sen told ET early this week, referring to his rejoinder to Bhagwati's letter to the editor of The Economist, which had reviewed Sen's latest book co-authored with Jean Dreze, An Uncertain Glory. Bhagwati's letter had criticised Sen for his alleged "lip-service" to growth. In his reply, Sen justified his works, saying that from his "PhD thesis onwards, I have been concerned about growth". Sen told ET in an exclusive interview that though he argues for high spending in education and healthcare, that didn't mean he was against growth.
But Bhagwati, Columbia University professor of law and economics, is relentless. After attacking Sen for alleged intellectual dishonesty, he told ET Magazine on Friday that "no one ever had anything warm to say about Sen's role in the 1991 reforms because he had virtually opposed them, as we point out in the first part of the Bhagwati-Panagariya book [India's Tryst With Destiny]".
He goes on: "When finance minister Manmohan Singh was in New York in 1992, he had a lunch for many big CEOs whom he was trying to seduce to come to India. He also invited me and my wife, Padma Desai, to the lunch. As we came in, the FM introduced us to the invitees and said: 'These friends of mine wrote almost a quarter century ago [India: Planning for Industrialisation was published in 1970 by Oxford], recommending all the reforms we are now undertaking. If we had accepted the advice then, we would not be having this lunch as you would already be in India'."
Bhagwati says his stance in defence of globalisation and reforms has won him many accolades, even from the likes of legendary economist Paul Samuelson. "This is the age of Bhagwati," he quoted Samuelson as saying. Interestingly, Sen, too, holds Samuelson in high esteem and calls him one of the "Elvis Presleys of economics".
In Defence of Sen
It could be pure coincidence: months after Bhagwati and Panagariya expressed their admiration for Modi's economic decisions, Sen was asked if he liked the idea of Modi becoming India's prime minister. He said no. And all hell broke loose.
"He was answering a question. He is entitled to his opinion as a citizen of India," says a US-based Indian-origin economist who asked not to be named because he doesn't want to be drawn into a "dirty, personal" debate. "I don't share Sen's political views, but the Twitterati that is after him has no idea of the contribution he has made to understanding poverty and social justice," he adds. Sen, for his part, had said that he would like a more secular person to be prime minister. "I would not like a prime minister who generates concern and fear on the part of minorities," he had told ET.
Angus Deaton, professor of economics and international affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, finds it very amusing. "Another eruption in a war that seems to have been going on for a long time," he says.
Martha Nussbaum, a Chicago University professor, refused to comment on this "debate" that the US-based academic says has become "boring and uninteresting". And Pranab Bardhan, professor of Graduate School, University of California at Berkeley, doesn't want to "join the media circus in India that is blowing up the relatively small and perfectly normal differences of opinion between two respectable economists".
Clearly, the spotlight is on economists Amartya Sen, 79, and Jagdish Bhagwati, 78, whose rivalry has stirred a political storm in India. In a January 2 interview to The Economic Times, Bhagwati and his co-author Arvind Panagariya said they admired Gujarat chief ministerNarendra Modi for his economic policies.
For them, he stood for what they called the Gujarat model of development, which they reckoned was superior to the contrasting Kerala model of development. The two economists described the Gujarat model as a metaphor for a primarily growth and private entrepreneurshipdriven development and the Kerala model for a primarily redistribution and state-driven development.
For his part, Sen had upheld what he calls the "Kerala experience" — high social spending resulting in growth — as a role model for other states to follow. The Nobel Prize-winning Harvard University professor is of the view that the Gujarat development model suffered from weaknesses on the social side and could not be considered a success.Bhagwati and Panagariya often hit out at Sen for his "avuncular" approach of not agreeing to a public debate on the issue. Sen had told ET: "Jagdish had provoked me many times. But I have never ever uttered a word." Not any more.
The Fighter's Club
"I hope it was the first and the last time I responded to his attack," Sen told ET early this week, referring to his rejoinder to Bhagwati's letter to the editor of The Economist, which had reviewed Sen's latest book co-authored with Jean Dreze, An Uncertain Glory. Bhagwati's letter had criticised Sen for his alleged "lip-service" to growth. In his reply, Sen justified his works, saying that from his "PhD thesis onwards, I have been concerned about growth". Sen told ET in an exclusive interview that though he argues for high spending in education and healthcare, that didn't mean he was against growth.
But Bhagwati, Columbia University professor of law and economics, is relentless. After attacking Sen for alleged intellectual dishonesty, he told ET Magazine on Friday that "no one ever had anything warm to say about Sen's role in the 1991 reforms because he had virtually opposed them, as we point out in the first part of the Bhagwati-Panagariya book [India's Tryst With Destiny]".
He goes on: "When finance minister Manmohan Singh was in New York in 1992, he had a lunch for many big CEOs whom he was trying to seduce to come to India. He also invited me and my wife, Padma Desai, to the lunch. As we came in, the FM introduced us to the invitees and said: 'These friends of mine wrote almost a quarter century ago [India: Planning for Industrialisation was published in 1970 by Oxford], recommending all the reforms we are now undertaking. If we had accepted the advice then, we would not be having this lunch as you would already be in India'."
Bhagwati says his stance in defence of globalisation and reforms has won him many accolades, even from the likes of legendary economist Paul Samuelson. "This is the age of Bhagwati," he quoted Samuelson as saying. Interestingly, Sen, too, holds Samuelson in high esteem and calls him one of the "Elvis Presleys of economics".
In Defence of Sen
It could be pure coincidence: months after Bhagwati and Panagariya expressed their admiration for Modi's economic decisions, Sen was asked if he liked the idea of Modi becoming India's prime minister. He said no. And all hell broke loose.
"He was answering a question. He is entitled to his opinion as a citizen of India," says a US-based Indian-origin economist who asked not to be named because he doesn't want to be drawn into a "dirty, personal" debate. "I don't share Sen's political views, but the Twitterati that is after him has no idea of the contribution he has made to understanding poverty and social justice," he adds. Sen, for his part, had said that he would like a more secular person to be prime minister. "I would not like a prime minister who generates concern and fear on the part of minorities," he had told ET.
In the face of preposterous remarks from people in high places — such as members of parliament and opinion leaders — that Sen be stripped of the Bharat Ratna conferred on him in 1999, Kunal Sen contends that the debate has taken an ugly turn. Indeed it has, with some referring to Sen as a "has-been" economist.
Much to their despair, Sen is as relevant as ever, declares Ghemawat. "He is far less outdated than he has ever been," says S Subramanian, a professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies and an alumnus of the London School of Economics. "He is admired because he says sensible things. People don't just say he says sensible things just because they admire him," notes Subramanian who has worked closely with Sen for long, emphasising that the importance of Sen's studies only becomes far more significant at a time when official data grossly underestimate India's poverty.
Ironically, statements of a few ruling party leaders in India that one could afford a meal for Rs 12 and Rs 5 lend much credibility to Sen's argument that poverty is not all about food alone. The politicians were trying to justify the doubtful poverty line of Rs 27 for rural and Rs 33 for urban areas.
Sen's works on the Bengal famine were pathbreaking and phenomenal, note both Kunal Sen and Ghemawat. The only Indian economist to have won the Nobel Prize in economics had proposed a multidimensional approach to measuring poverty than based on consumption alone. He also developed the capability approach, along with the likes of Nussbaum, a concept that inspired the creation of the UN's Human Development Index. The capability approach brings in various factors, including individual freedoms, which were excluded from welfare economics earlier.
"Professsor Sen is argumentative, not quarrelsome," says Subramanian in a veiled attack on Bhagwati who recently said that Sen poses a grave danger to policymaking in India. He adds that it is Sen's deep understanding of the general equilibrium theory that prompted him to back high social spending along with growth. Sen doesn't need to be given a primer on growth by anyone, he adds. General equilibrium theory deals with overall equilibrium in any economy. "As an economist I am a great admirer of Sen's works, and they have stood the test of time," says Ghemawat.
In fact, none of the countries that have become rich ever talked about any trade-off between social spending and growth, says Kunal Sen citing the experiences of countries such as Taiwan, Korea and Thailand. "There should be no such trade-off," he insists in support of Sen.
Kerala Vs Gujarat
The Bhagwati-Panagariya duo argues that whatever Kerala had achieved was thanks to a growth-oriented approach. They suggest that Kerala's high social indicators have much less to do with the so-called Kerala model, and more to do with global trade, growth-oriented policies and private-sector participation. "To keep asserting such causality [Sen's argument] is the mark of a lazy intellect and is, besides, dangerous in its potential for misleading us to make harmful policy choices," they had told ET.
Much to their despair, Sen is as relevant as ever, declares Ghemawat. "He is far less outdated than he has ever been," says S Subramanian, a professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies and an alumnus of the London School of Economics. "He is admired because he says sensible things. People don't just say he says sensible things just because they admire him," notes Subramanian who has worked closely with Sen for long, emphasising that the importance of Sen's studies only becomes far more significant at a time when official data grossly underestimate India's poverty.
Ironically, statements of a few ruling party leaders in India that one could afford a meal for Rs 12 and Rs 5 lend much credibility to Sen's argument that poverty is not all about food alone. The politicians were trying to justify the doubtful poverty line of Rs 27 for rural and Rs 33 for urban areas.
Sen's works on the Bengal famine were pathbreaking and phenomenal, note both Kunal Sen and Ghemawat. The only Indian economist to have won the Nobel Prize in economics had proposed a multidimensional approach to measuring poverty than based on consumption alone. He also developed the capability approach, along with the likes of Nussbaum, a concept that inspired the creation of the UN's Human Development Index. The capability approach brings in various factors, including individual freedoms, which were excluded from welfare economics earlier.
"Professsor Sen is argumentative, not quarrelsome," says Subramanian in a veiled attack on Bhagwati who recently said that Sen poses a grave danger to policymaking in India. He adds that it is Sen's deep understanding of the general equilibrium theory that prompted him to back high social spending along with growth. Sen doesn't need to be given a primer on growth by anyone, he adds. General equilibrium theory deals with overall equilibrium in any economy. "As an economist I am a great admirer of Sen's works, and they have stood the test of time," says Ghemawat.
In fact, none of the countries that have become rich ever talked about any trade-off between social spending and growth, says Kunal Sen citing the experiences of countries such as Taiwan, Korea and Thailand. "There should be no such trade-off," he insists in support of Sen.
Kerala Vs Gujarat
The Bhagwati-Panagariya duo argues that whatever Kerala had achieved was thanks to a growth-oriented approach. They suggest that Kerala's high social indicators have much less to do with the so-called Kerala model, and more to do with global trade, growth-oriented policies and private-sector participation. "To keep asserting such causality [Sen's argument] is the mark of a lazy intellect and is, besides, dangerous in its potential for misleading us to make harmful policy choices," they had told ET.
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