This collection of pieces by Kaushik Basu, written over the last five years, is verily a potpourri of thoughts on a variety of subjects, the only common element being the catholicity of his tastes.
Basu has had a fairly long stint abroad holding prestigious academic positions. Yet he retains the Indian weltanschauung lightly without being righteous. Respected for his research on development economics, industrial organisations, and globalisation, among others, he has edited commemorative volumes in honour of Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz. He is a self-confessed agnostic; but may not mind a prayer to Goddess Kali of Kolkata for its continuance! (He has a delightful piece on Praying at the foothills of Mount Fuji to get over his stomach pains!)
Reader's delight
A collection of this kind is surely a reader's delight, but a reviewer's peril. The subjects range from kings to cabbages: a comparison of the performance of India with China's; the state of the Indian economy, its strength, potential and failings; personalities; current economic issues; personal memorabilia; a couple of stories translated from Bengali and, finally, a play set in academic cloisters.
Basu being an economist, it is unavoidable that economy-related themes crisscross many of the essays and, in the process, provide a peep into his thinking and values. He is no ideologue and will resent being so labelled.
More than aware of the need for healthy scepticism, he abhors market fundamentalism. On the current ‘State versus market' debate, he cautions that for 40 years after Independence, the country leaned heavily on the state to deliver it all, and now, in the era of reforms, “We must not err the next 40 years with another flawed ideology.”
There is a delectable piece on Engels and how Marxism as an actual system of governance reached a cul-de-sac. As he explains, in a true positivist analytic, knowledge and science cannot be driven to the extremes of certainty when “knowledge will be replaced by the illusion of knowledge and dogma will dislodge the temper of science.” Though Marxism has failed, he does not want “the idealism and quest for justice that were moving forces behind the lives of Marx and Engels” to vanish.
Similar is the tenor in which he speaks about Amartya Sen and his contributions. Sen is indeed a part of Basu's intellectual make-up which dates back to his Delhi University days. In a review of the Argumentative Indian , he notes how Sen re-emerges with newer ideas, and says his warning — that nationalism could also turn into a disease like racism and religious intolerance — is disturbing, but valid.
His short and scintillating piece on Paul Samuelson, the legendary Harvard icon, is a pleasure to read. Basu was indeed lucky to have shared a common central area in MIT with two Nobel Laureates, and he shares that joy with the readers lightly.
There are some pieces on improving our economic system by, for instance, amending laws related to contracts and labour. Frankly, these are the laments of economists who come from abroad. They are indeed true but they can also be overblown. We are yet to discern how much of it is due to lack of political will and how much due to democratic compulsions.
The analysis of land acquisition is marked by balanced judgment. For a game theorist, Basu knows that there is no ‘Nash Equilibrium' and believes that the settlement has to come through state intervention. Unfortunately, we are yet to come to terms with a manner of intervention that is equitable.
Basu's analysis of new financial products and how a new way of ‘prescriptions' on the analogy of drug control may obviate the pitfalls is somewhat simplistic. There is still the lingering hope of “efficient market” doing its bit!
The description of nature and living conditions in Mizoram borders on poetry. While capturing the beauty of the place, he does not shy away from the ground realities. As he says, “If we do not act soon, there is every possibility that the region will erupt into internecine warfare of a kind not seen in India before.”
When Basu published the Economic Survey in the first year of his stint in the Finance Ministry, almost all financial pundits appreciated the elegance of the style even if they did not agree with the content. Some of the pieces in this collection can adorn English textbooks for undergraduates.
