The writer is a columnist. He is also a former editor of the Mumbai-based English newspaper Mid Day and the Gujarati paper Divya Bhaskar
aakar.patel@tribune.com.pk
Should growth in India precede redistribution or does redistribution precedes growth?
The first holds that an economy should be allowed to run freely and the state should not take much out of it and ‘redistribute’ it to the poor. The second believes that without strong public spending on nutrition, health and education, a robust economy with long-term growth isn’t possible.
The Indian economist Jagdish Bhagwati has written that he has always believed in the former, while Amartya Sen has backed the latter. This redistribution is something Bhagwati says is damaging India’s growth.
Sen does not agree with this formulation at all, and says it isn’t necessary that growth come at the expense of redistribution. However, I want to look at something which Bhagwati says right at the beginning of his piece.
He writes: “I also believe that the Gujarat template is ideal: its people believe in accumulating wealth but they believe also in using it, not for self-indulgence but for social good. This comes from the Vaishnav and Jain traditions that Gandhiji drew upon as well. The best ‘foreign’ model of this type is exemplified by my most distinguished Columbia University colleague, Simon Schama, who wrote about the Dutch burghers who had similar values and lifestyles. It is also a great model for India, I believe.”
What exactly is this Gujarat template? Bhagwati does not tell us, but even so, there are two problems with this.
First, Bhagwati (who is Gujarati) appears to have the same utopian idea about his state that many Gujarati immigrants have about their homeland. The reality is different. The baniya is excellent at accumulating capital but not particularly good at giving it away.
There are no great philanthropists in Gujarat. Here’s the most obvious, but by no means most uncommon, example. The Ambanis built a home worth a billion dollars for themselves (“not for self-indulgence”?) and fees at the Dhirubhai Ambani International School they built are Indian Rupees (INR) 500,000 a year. A wellness check-up at the Kokilaben Ambani hospital costs INR 5,000. How is this ‘social good’?
It could be argued that this mentality is changing (for instance, the superb philanthropic work of Azim Premji, also a Gujarati). But this is hardly from the Vaishnav and Jain tradition. It ensues from a liberalism akin to Sen’s.
The second problem is less easy to resolve. Gujarat has mercantile castes, the basis of its economy. It has mercantile castes among its Hindus, Jains and even among its Muslims. Bengal, Bihar and Orissa don’t have this asset. There is not a single Bengali, Bihari or Oriya in the Forbes list of Indian billionaires but there are a dozen Gujaratis from four religions.
How does the ‘Gujarat template’ apply to these states? Again, we don’t know.
In response to Bhagwati, writer Debraj Bhattacharya made some excellent points. First, Bhagwati has not “tried to show how a country such as India, which is largely dependent on internal market rather than export, can continue to grow if a large section of the population simply cannot have their basic needs of life fulfilled.
“There is an assumption in what Bhagwati has written that if an economy (read GDP) keeps growing, it will ultimately lift people out of poverty. He does not, however, explain how when the global economy is facing a recession, Indian economy will keep growing at double digit rate and for how long.”
This is a good question. Bhattacharya then asks another: “Let us for the sake of argument assume that Bhagwati is right about Gujarat’s ‘Vaishnav and Jain traditions’ that believes in making money and also sharing that money. His own argument is that this is a historical phenomenon. So, how can this be replicated in, say, Arunachal Pradesh? So, in order to make the ‘Gujarat model’ replicable, one would need to transplant the ‘Jain and Vaishav’ tradition into Arunachal Pradesh? Clearly, this is not possible.”
I think Bhagwati has, in this instance, succumbed to the narrow Gujarati position. Though I am also Gujarati, I think the Bengali view of Sen is the right one instead.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 28th, 2013.
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COMMENTS (43)
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@Proletarian: Every employee will be paid less than the product of his work. This is a law of nature. Why should you, I or anybody employ somebody who has to be paid more than the output he gives?
Workers build houses they can never afford. But there is nothing wrong if they get work this way. What is wrong if a capitalist builds a luxurious tower for himself, with his well-earned money.
You yourself say that people work for 'less' because there is no alternative available. Then why is it that instead of appreciating the capitalist who might be the only option for the poor, socialists like you always give them abuses. It is like biting the hand that feeds. Please stop this.
@Vinayak Yes. Well being for all. This is eveyone's right. This a morality higher than any based on the farce called religion. It is time we do away with castes forever. And I detest entrepreneurs. The're the new idols of the middle class. Remember, under the present system, wealth is based on the poverty and desperation of others. Capital and capitalists go wherever their are poor people to be exploited, desperate enough to work for less than the product of their labor. Thus you have workers building houses and cars they can never afford. This is why India is becoming wealthy, because there is massive poverty in India, which means pathetically low wages are possible, which means more profits for western capitalists, a higher return on their "investment", and now the rich indians too have jumped on the bandwagon and are doing the same thing. China too has stabbed it's working class in the back and has turned them into mere "cheap labor". You say bonded labor is gone and anyone can quit if he likes but this is just naive. Look around you, is there an alternative available? Fact remains there is there is no choice for the worker except to accept exploitation or starve. A feudal relationthip remains between the employee, who works and is paid less than the product of his work, and the employer, who merely owns and takes the lions share. Until there is common ownership of land and industry there can be no real emancipation of humanity.
@Gratgy So upon scratching the surface it turns out your begging class was just a bogeyman. Tell me, why are is the poor working class paid so little when the work they do is so much more neccesary for society than that of any enterprenuer who runs a call centre. Your success will only last as long as your workers remain impovrished, divided and ignorant. If the day comes they become educated, turn their back on race and religion and vote for a wellfare state you'll moan about 'growth" slowing down and curse those lazy (underpaid) bums like the upper classes in Europe and the US, which are the people now investing in India.
@Proletarian
The homes the “banyas” live in, who built them? The begging class? The food the “banyas” stuff in their gut, who grows it? The begging class?
Wrong on both counts. You seem to have got confused between the poor "working class" and the "begging class." Labourers and farmers also come under working class as they work to sustain themselves. All those who are poor do not necessarily beg.
The begging class does not add value, they do no work, only ask for handouts.
By the way I am also a farmer (apart from my regular profession) and grow food as well.
@Proletarian: They days of bonded labour are long gone my friend. If somebody does not want to work for 'middleman capitalist parasites' he can work somewhere else. If the 'managerial caste' is hogging a huge share of profit by doing nothing, why don't somebody like you do something and give him competition. But I think you belong to the creed who believe in -- I won't work for a capitalist, I won't be a capitalist (entrepreneur) myself. I am entitled to wealth by right and I will demand it from the world.
@Truthbetold Wealth is created by applying human labor applied to natural resources, nothing more, nothing less. The middleman capitalist parasite is a hindrance to the creation and spread wealth. World needs a new social order. Workers must manage their own industry through democratic organizations and kick out the managerial caste that hogs the largest share of profits while doing nothing. A larger association of such worker organizations must oversee the expansion of industry.
what on earth has it to do with Pakistan?
If a country doesn't grow economically and create wealth in the first place, what is there to distribute except poverty for everyone? A certain critical amount of capital accumulation in a few hands is needed in order to seed businesses and grow the economy and create jobs. Mere redistribution is a failed socialist/communist policy that has failed.
Setting aside the premise of this article, it is pretty amazing and instructive that seemingly educated and worldly Indians are incapable of hearing some constructive criticism of their society and stoop down to name calling of Mr Patel. Not much different from fundos and rights wing nuts in Pakistan who don’t see any problem in their extremist mind set and always ready to abuse and threaten their critics. Carry on Mr Patel, constructive criticism and objectivity is what I see in your writings. You sure are an asset to this news paper and its audiences.
@lalagee: I agree with your comment. The only reason why a Pakistani paper publishes this author's choleric tirades against India is because it pleases Pakistani ears. Indian papers have a much stronger investigative sense and do not publish this man's editorial trash. But I also wonder if a Pakistani paper would publish this man's opinion comments if he ever wrote a piece that is critical of Pakistan or Pakistanis.
@khan ali: It is absurd and unfair to say that the wealth is not trickling down to the Muslim population. We have had exemplary cases of Muslims reaching the top run of the ladder --not just in business and industry but also in high political offices, sciences and, most conspicuously, in Bollywood. The only requirement is that they work hard and offer something that would elevate their status. This is the reason why the Indian Government encourages the Muslim population to seek a modern education that will enable them to compete against anyone anywhere in the world (unlike in Pakistan where the government trying to please religious bigots and fanatics harps on religious education, and sidelines the minority Hindus, Sikhs and Christians, hoping they would sink into poverty and isolation). The minorities do not even have a chance in Pakistan to survive, let alone reach the top rung of the ladder. Please also look in your own house with the majority of Muslims, freshly "graduated" from madrasahs, going on a rampage to destroy everything that does not conform to their fanatic ideology. I could prepare a long list of chances and opportunities that Muslims enjoy in India juxtaposing it with the repression and subjugation of minorities in Pakistan, but then it could fill an entire newspaper. And I won't like to abuse the hospitality of the Express Tribune which is gracious enough to carry these comments in response to your bizarre comment. By the way, try asking any Indian Muslim if he would like to migrate to Pakistan. And then ask a Hindu or Sikh in Pakistan if he would like to migrate to India. They could hold the mirror for you to stare at yourself.
@Gratgy
Just answer me this The homes the "banyas" live in, who built them? The begging class? The food the "banyas" stuff in their gut, who grows it? The begging class?
Unfortunately under capitalism those who do the backbreaking hard work are paid a pittance for their labor, impoverished, demeaned, and called beggars while the idle rich middlemen pat themselves on the back and consider themselves "hardworkers". Wealth is not a measure of how hard you have worked.
Rigid india that's it
@Satish Chandra: I can't take these psychotic ramblings any more.
Proof is in pudding. Jagdish Bhagwati is a gujrati and gujrat is one of the fastest growing, richest state with very low unemployment, across all religion and social classes of gujrat. Besides setting up industries that employs people, go to any tourist destinations, hotels, restaurants anywhere in india, you will find them having disproportionately large gujrati patrons. Meaning, their spending helps supports many industries all across india. Amartya Sen is a bengali. Bengal is one of the basket case of india, with not much industrialization, living off the money from the central governments paid for by the poor taxpayer of india, .
As a rejoinder to my earlier post I will like to list the contribution of other Banias/ businessmen of India in nation building;
Tata: Tatas have built many institutions of national importance. Most important ones are; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Tata Memorial Hospitals, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Tata Energy Research Center. Birlas : Birla Institure Pilani and Ranchi, BM Birla Heart Institute Kolkata and hoards of other schools. Birlas paid for many freedom fighters including Gandhi Ji. Temples and Gurudwaras are well known for running hospitals and educational institutions. There are lots of others who have built public institutionsWithout Modi and Gujarat, Aakar Patel would find himself Bekar Patel
There is the working class and there is the begging class. Baniyas represent the working class while the author seems to identify himself with the begging class
ET is an otherwise very respectable paper. But !!!! It is a shame they couldn't find any one better than this guy. He is so obsessed with caste it is nauseating.
As you brought how selfish banias are today muslim breathe freely bcoz of humanist hindu bania mahatma gandhi even gandhian pm morarji desai was a bania who fought against emergency and the newspaper that fought against indira was indian express owned by a bania ramnath goenka oh i forgot he fought against alleged corruption of fellow bania dhirubhai ambani this is what intellectual have been doing dividing the hindu community on the basis of varnas which are nonexistent in modern India
Aakar Ahmed has serious issue with Modi when Modi addresses a small group of Muslims whom he considers as anti-Indian Jehadi-type Muslims as "MIAN"; however Aakar sees no problem in addressing a large community of Hindus, as BANIA.
Aaakar's verbal diatribe on baniyas reminds one of Hitler's ranting against the Jews. Aaakar resents baniyas because they do not 'give' away their wealth. Well let us put baniyas in concentration camps and then what will happen? Industry and shops will not longer be able to run efficiently. The resultant inflation will affect the poor most. So many people will straight away loose jobs. In effect the economy will have more people who will be dependent on more 'give's' from the government. Then people like Aaakar can find some other community to hate.
bania are well of bcoz of their hardwork i cm from sindhi lohana caste(banias) when we left pak my great grandfather was left with not a single penny today we are well off bcoz we worked hard my father worked hard for what philantrophy muslims do apart from making huge mosques see the tradition of muslim kings just making huge palaces for themselves this is a pan india tradition but today lakhs of beggars are fed bcoz of money given by those hindus and jains though personally even i dont like ambanis bcoz they are kind of show off like it may be a satyamev jayate or ipl and mr.premji is my hero and so is mr.murthy so not abt community but just personal choices
I ) Indian media should cover nothing but Satish Chandra. Modi is CIA-sponsored. India's government is a proxy for the CIA. The requirement, put in place by Manmohan Singh, for mid-career Indian civil servants (sending Indian military officers for training to the United States has the same purpose) to go to U.S. universities for training so their future career prospects, promotions, etc. are controlled by Americans is meant to make India's government as a proxy for the CIA more perfect. There has been a long-standing requirement in American and British universities that to receive a Ph.D. degree from them, Indians -- this included Manmohan Singh -- have to agree to work for American or British intelligence agencies. All politicians are controlled by the CIA and deserve death. The world's greatest scientist and India's legitimate ruler -- Satish Chandra -- has been systematically suppressed using 24-hour satellite surveillance for the past 36 years. IndiasLegitimateRulerSatishChandraDOTblogspotDOTcom
II ) JULY 16-20, 2013: The following is a comment I posted on Chitra Subramaniam's piece on Quattrocci's death and Bofors at newslaundryDOTcom; the comment went for 'moderation', then published, then deleted within minutes by the CIA and then restored when the CIA saw I had seen it had deleted it and was about to repost it, then deleted again when I was away from the computer for a few hours after I wrote, regarding CIA's plan to use India's population for AIDS vaccine development and its blackmailing Rajiv Gandhi, who at first refused, with the Bofors and HDW kickback disclosures to agree to this plan, about Rajiv Gandhi and Vajpayee agreeing to CIA-RAW spreading heroin addiction in India's tribal Northeast to create a population of AIDS infected people for this purpose; now the CIA is preventing the comment from being reposted :-
"The CIA keeps deleting my comment. I am reposting it. India's government is a proxy for the CIA. The requirement, put in place by Manmohan Singh, for mid-career Indian civil servants (sending Indian military officers for training to the United States has the same purpose) to go to U.S. universities for training so their future career prospects, promotions, etc. are controlled by Americans is meant to make India's government as a proxy for the CIA more perfect. There has been a long-standing requirement in American and British universities that to receive a Ph.D. degree from them, Indians -- this included Manmohan Singh -- have to agree to work for American or British intelligence agencies. All politicians are controlled by the CIA and deserve death. The world's greatest scientist and India's legitimate ruler -- Satish Chandra -- has been systematically suppressed using 24-hour satellite surveillance for the past 36 years. IndiasLegitimateRulerSatishChandraDOTblogspotDOTcom
I called this piece of dog-faeces -- Chitra Subramanian -- to say that the Bofors and HDW kickback disclosures were orchestrated and calibrated by the CIA to blackmail Rajiv Gandhi into letting India's population be used as guinea pigs for the development of an AIDS vaccine after he at first refused and that, while the kickback charges were true and should be reported, the use of the charges for this purpose should also be reported. The center of this operation was Harvard's School of Public Health and I had detailed and first hand knowledge of it. This piece of dog-faeces, who worked for the CIA, knew I was the world's greatest scientist but called the information I gave her a "conspiracy theory" and insultingly blew me off. She reportedly has cancer and I hope has a gruesome death. There were only a few hundred cases of AIDS infection in India at the start of the plan to use India's population as guinea pigs for AIDS vaccine development and to spread AIDS infection in India for this purpose; now India has several million cases of AIDS infection. India's RAW, on behalf of the CIA, undertook to spread heroin addiction -- sharing needles among addicts is a principal route of AIDS infection -- in India's tribal Northeast under a 3-way agreement between the CIA, Rajiv Gandhi and Vajpayee. But, of course, the infection did not remain confined to the tribal Northeast. A report in India Abroad newspaper quoted someone at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences saying 'Why should we let our tribal people be used for AIDS vaccine development?' To deal with such resistance, a former head of the Indian Council for Medical Research, V. Ramalingaswami, was brought to the Harvard School of Public Health and given the royal treatment, to the extent of the secretaries adopting British pronunciations in deference to his pronunciation of words. After the CIA's plan was accepted by the Indian government, he was rewarded with a several year appointment at another U.S. university. When he was still resisting the CIA's plan, a report in the same newspaper quoted Rajiv Gandhi defiantly saying he will not be pressurised by "transfer of technology", etc. Once Rajiv Gandhi agreed to have India's population used for AIDS vaccine development, the Bofors disclosures stopped and Vajpayee when prime minister actively covered up the Bofors matter. In press releases and letters and articles to the press I have described these developments over almost 3 decades."
On August 9, 2008, CIA Director Michael Hayden and former chairman of India's Joint Intelligence Committee, K. Subrahmanyam, came on line and offered to transfer one crore (ten million) rupees into my bank account within 48 hours if I agreed to work for the CIA. This was coupled with various kinds of threats and abuse. Several dozen of the most abusive comments were deleted by them before I saved the comments on my computer but the offer to transfer one crore rupees into my bank account is in the comments saved and their text only version can be seen at HaydenSubrahmanyamDOTblogspotDOTcom (many are harassive comments posted by them in my name). To see the comments as they appeared on the published page, go to PsychotherapyDOTeBoardDOTcom, then on the page that appears click on the tab labeled "Offer to me by CIA Director and K. Subrahmanyam", go to the bottom of the page that appears then click the link at the bottom of that page. This file of their comments has also been attached to my press releases, including today's, thousands of times. When I did not respond to their offer, Hayden said "I am concerned that Satish Chandra may not cooperate due to his super-patriotism and high intellect" and K. Subrahmanyam said "I am hoping tht Satish Chandra's patriotism can be purchased. His deductive skills are amazing and he can of great use to the cause of Indo-US friendship". First K. Subrahmanyam said "I admire your courage. But I must know how you know so much about myself, RAW operations, and the C.I.A.-RAW nexus. You are a genius indeed, and we would like to do business with you", and Hayden said "We at the CIA are also amazed at the deductive skills and intellect of Satish Chandra" -- a testimonial to my patriotism and intellect from the enemy.
On the page containing the CIA Director's and K. Sbubrahmanyam's comments, where the latter mocks the people of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for their English, a comment of mine says: "1) Citizen inspectors should constantly inspect all nuclear facilities ... to ensure that no IAEA inspections take place. 2) No firangi should be allowed on the streets of Indian cities or elsewhere unless accompanied by firangi-watchers and firangi-hunters and can satisfy the latter that he/she is going for some legitimate purpose ... . 3) Any Indian found associating with firangis in any way should be beaten to death on the spot." At this the BJP president said that the English language has caused a great deal of damage to India. At this a Congress party spokesman on July 19 '13 said "I sometimes feel like laughing at our friends. On one side their vision document is outsourced to people who don’t speak any language other than English" -- meaning myself because I had written that in a telephone conversation I had to apologize to Vajpayee for switching to English as I was no longer fluent in Hindi. The Anglo-Americans killed over ten million Indians -- by gun and sword not famine -- in just the ten years after 1857 in just Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Bihar and continue to hold India in the deepest slavery because of which no politician or media organ dares to utter my name. If, despite this, a political party does not make the coast-to-coast destruction of the United States the central part of its vision document, it is not serious about reversing the damage done to India by the Anglo-Americans. I have already given India the means to destroy Washington and New York now and the rest of the United States five years later.
The BJP General Secretary in Tamil Nadu was killed by RAW -- which is a branch of the CIA (WhatYouShouldKnowAboutRAWDOTblogspotDOTcom ) -- to replace 'Anyone found associating with firangis should be beaten to death on the spot ' , above, with 'Anyone found associating with Hindi-speakers ... '. When I write about defending against the United States, RAW carries out terrorist attacks or border incidents to replace it with defence against Muslims or Pakistan. In Pakistan, Iraq, etc., the CIA makes Shias and Sunnis fight each other to replace fighting their common enemy, the United States. It has successfully made China and Japan fight over some islands to replace fighting their common enemy, the United States.
English is dominant because the Anglo-Americans militarily dominated India and remain India's rulers via their Indian proxies. English in India is an aspect of India's continued slavery to the Anglo-Americans and is a consequence of India's military subjugation to them. Other aspects of the slavery include, for example, the Indian government spreading AIDS in India to provide its white masters a population of AIDS infected people to use as guinea pigs for vaccine development. Another aspect, for example, is the Indian government inviting its foreign masters to use India's population as slave manufacturers and collaborating in the suppression of the world's greatest scientist and greatest Indian of all time (IndiasTraitorGovtAndMediaDOTblogspotDOTcom ). The important thing is the coast-to-coast destruction of the United States. That will destroy all aspects of the slavery including linguistic slavery.
III ) How India’s Economy Can Grow 30% Per Year Or More: HowIndiasEconomyCanGrowDOTblogspotDOTcom
Suppose a government wishes to increase the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by twenty, thirty or forty percent in a given year over and above, say, a seven percent increase that is expected. All it has to do is print and spend an additional amount, equal to twenty, thirty or forty percent of the GDP, in that year on productive purposes. By definition, the GDP would have increased by an additional twenty, thirty or forty percent that year (not counting the multiplier effect, referred to in my letters to the press, which will depend on how the money is spent). Printing the money takes no creativity, thinking up productive purposes to spend it on does not take much either. The money can be spent directly by the government, through private parties or both ways though, of course, by spending the money directly, the government does not have to wait for private parties to come up with proposals. The important thing is that how much the GDP grows next year-- seven percent or twenty seven percent or more-- is strictly in the government's own hands.
Terms such as "deficits" (there are no deficits when all the money a government spends is printed by it; if the government does take in money as taxes or charges, the effects of deficits on interest rates occur only if the government borrows the additional money, not if it prints it) and "overheating" of the economy are worthless concepts which only serve to maintain the status quo in which various people have a vested interest. As I wrote some years ago, "people get pleasure from the pain and deprivation of others and [reference to a head of government], who is no exception, will not want [a change]".
Note that the recommendation above is to print and spend an amount equal to twenty, thirty or forty percent of the GDP IN ADDITION TO whatever the government was otherwise going to do by way of taxing (unnecessary as it is) and spending, etc. Since the production of goods and services, including consumer as well as capital goods, will rise right along with the additional spending, any effects of the additional spending will be benign. Even if some adverse effects are postulated, in no way can they overcome the huge advantage from a GDP growth of twenty seven percent or more over seven percent in a year.
During war, government spending on equipment and supplies (guns and bullets, etc.) can suddenly increase ten, twenty or fifty times. During World War II, the United States government put in place price controls (under J. K. Galbraith) to curb the inflationary effect of such spending (since production capacity was diverted to war equipment and supplies from consumer items). (It was the enormous increase in U. S. government spending during World War II that gave rise to its 'National Debt'). A similarly sudden and large increase in government spending in peace time on the production of food, clothing, shelter, transportation, etc., for the citizenry will not result in the kind of price rise the United States expected in World War II, because the production of consumer goods and services will increase along with the money supply-- even if a lot of the additional spending is directed to military purposes. In any case, price controls can be used in peace time, if necessary, as in war time.
It is noteworthy that both the United States government and the Indian government had proceeded to implement my proposal about money, as I have described in letters dated August 1, 2001, September 6, 2001 and April 13, 2001 (also letters about stock market manipulation by the U.S. Treasury Department by pumping money into the stock market; Bush made a trip through an underground tunnel from the White House to the Treasury Department to see the set up created for such manipulation) that appeared in the American online newspaper thecurrentonline; they can be found at SatishChandraInTheCurrentonlineDOTblogspotDOTcom . The Vajpayee government set up a separate Cabinet Committee on Economic Strategy for the purpose of stealing my proposal about money. When I pointed out that they were trying to STEAL my proposal about money, they stopped implementing it. The U.S. Federal Reserve has been buying more than a trillion dollars of U.S. Treasury bonds every year -- another way of applying my proposal about money. The DMK government in Tamil Nadu was having Indian currency printed in China with the connivance of the head of the Reserve Bank of India, given to A. Raja as bribes and used to give freebies to the people of Tamil Nadu -- its way of applying my proposal about money since the Central government would not apply it to India as a whole.
I have said (see my blog titled 'Nuclear Supremacy For India Over U.S.' ) in letters to the press in 1998 and subsequently that the firangis gave the Nobel prize in Economics to the mediocre Indian named Amartya Sen as a substitute for the Nobel prize for me since they would not let their crimes against me, committed in collaboration with India’s RAW and India’s prime ministers, be exposed. When Clinton, as president, held a White House conference on the “New Economy”, the “New Economy” was the economy that my proposal about money leads to; of all the dozens of Nobel prize winners in Economics, he invited Amartya Sen to the conference -- though Sen had absolutely nothing to do with the “New Economy” -- because he is their mediocre Indian substitute for the greatest Indian of all time they have been committing crimes against. When Amartya Sen was given the Nobel prize, Vajpayee left New Delhi for several days to avoid meeting him, because he knew Sen was the firangis’ dummy substitute to cover their crimes against me, but RAW kept Sen waiting in New Delhi several days till Vajpayee yielded and gave him all the honours CIA-RAW wanted him to receive as a substitute for me.
Satish Chandra
the ummat guys believe only in increasing population& expect handouts from government or society. christian community,though very small in numbers spends on health& education, which is again open to all communities,irrespective of them owning the institutions,the christians also practice family planning.. the parsis have disproportionate number of industrialists& philanthropists. i sincerely believe this is one of the best communities in india,but its population is going down shockingly.i wish they at least keep up a sustainable level.otherwise everyone of us would be overrun by the races which their ancestors escaped from iran many years ago.one knows in what state iran is these days.one can also see in what state,the origin of indus valley civilization&sanskrit is these days. where shall we all go when india is also overrun.maybe,all of us can convert to save our lives.but, the examples of afganistan,pakistan,syria,yemen,iraq&the hypocrisy of the so called umma becomes obvious.they give scholarships etc. to all communities without bar. the jains are in the forefront of organ donation to save all humans without discrimination, despite their miniscule numbers.they also run many animal&bird rescue centres.they also distribute free food to hospital patients,homeless&destitutes.they are less than half percent of india's population& also practice family planning.no political party gives them any special benefits or helps them,so they run their own institutes.very peaceful folk, concentrate on business&education. the sikhs have a disproportionate contribution,in defence.less than 2% population,but regularly produce mikha singhs& manmohan singhs(all originally persecuted&driven out from present pakistan).they are in the forefront of family planning& command respect all over the country.few can recollect having seen a sikh begging.one only has to visit the jama masjid,delhi or ajmer shariff to see the number of muslims begging.all this despite getting lots of funds from abroad,especially the oil rich gulf. just ask any muslim to educate his children&give them good food,he replies..... hamaare din mein manaahi hai.allah deta hei,wahi badaa karega or khilaayega.all political parties are after them,they are inflation proof ever exploding votebanks.many times from a single family,all- daugter,mother,daugter-in-law,mother-in-law are all together in the same maternity ward,having either a delivery or waiting for cesarean section. while males of other communities are involved in constructive activities,here the are running from medical store to ward to hospital etc.their children are left to care of allah.no wonder,many of them go astray&get misguided by foreign intelligence agencies. some sensible but poor people end up sending their kids to madarassas where again they are likely to get radicalized&are taught obscure,outdated stuff. In fact, even SAUDI ARABIAN job.advertisements many times have this catch :KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH IS ESSENTIAL, HOWEVER KNOWLEDGE OF ARABIC WOULD BE AN ADDED ADVANTAGE. still every political party has plans for them,wakf boards are overflowing from foreign funds& generous zakat funds.everything fails,because if something was planned for 20,by the time five year plan is put into action,the number are already 30,because in case some time is still available,then instead of taking care of the kids, you can hear------' hey aslam,namaaz ka tame hoye gayela hai,chalna nahi hey kyaa?' ab mera khaane ka tame ho gaya hai,rest later
Akar Patel: Your articles help us understand India,s internal socio-politicle life.Thank you.How different is then India! shining or all that glitters...
Of course the debate between Mr Sen and Mr Bhagwati is not a new one but it has plagued economists for decades. Govt. has the duty to provide basic amenities like food, education, healthcare etc. to the poor and this is done by the taxes they collect. However the quantity and quality of such facilities is directly affected by the stage of development in which the state in question finds itself.
With increasing expenditure on the basic necessities its essential that a sense of ownership of well being in the minds of poor be inculcated. Or else the 'free amenities' provided by state would breed laziness and would compund problems in long term rather than solving them. Some schemes like MNREGA have transformed the rural economy to some extent but they have also made the rural people lazy and dependent on the free support. Money spent in such schemes are doing no long term good.
Case in point are people in the Ganges plain (UP, Bihar, West Bengal). The people in ganges plain are generally poor but also lazy. Lazy owing to the climate in part and also the rich fertile soil which would yield good harvest with minimum labour. If you keep providing 'free doles' to these people there is a strong possibility that it will be taken for-granted and make them even lazier. My point might seem 'draconian' as someone will construe it akin to starving poor to death. But lets not forget Indian people by nature are generally content ('santusht' in Hindi) with waht they have. So while no one can deny the crying need for food security of poor, there is need to balance what our economy can sustain in term of 'freebies' and the negative returns that are associated with them.
As far as Mr Ambani's billion dollar home is concerned, even the west would perhaps treat such indulgence as criminal waste of money. It's a total shameful act which no one can condone. While Reliance pays a good amount of tax (both direct and Indirect) to govt, that cannot be a justification for such acts.
Regarding the philanthropic activities of the Ambanis please check this link http://www.reliancefoundation.org/
Mr Patel you conveniently left out another Baniya family the Birla's (they maybe from Rajastan but they are also baniyas) just google and u will find countless number of schools, hospitals started by the family , the Goenkas are another family who have done a lot . Please do not pick for the sake of picking .
@khan ali:
Should the have nots work hard too, rather than waiting for some body to help them?
As for Muslims- if they start family planning in a strict way- they will be one of the richest communities in India. It is shameful to expect hand-outs for a whole community. Have you seen Sikhs, Jains and Parsis doing so?
So if it not Modi bashing it has to be Hindu bashing. Too much generalizations by Mr. Patel saying that Gujarati traditions is only about making money. i.e Indian(Hindus from India) are not good at giving. We all know that in general all developing countries do better in giving because there are far better systems in place for money to put to effective use. Thanks to Melinda & Gates Foundations many billionaires come together to give money because they know it will be effective. Apart from developed countries Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand , Burma do a lot better as compared to India. But our Islamic neighbors and the communist China do a lot worse than us, the hindu majority Nepal does lot better than us and Saudi Arabia does slightly better than Nepal. So please look at other angles to this data instead of the narrow caste/religion dimension.
@Author If the Ambanis led Reliance pays five percent of India's indirect tax collections, doesnt this go into building hospitals schools etc?
Or maybe you are assuming the UPA led government eats this up and the only way Ambani could contribute to the country is by building charitable hospitals himself?
India has seen the rise of a lot of software engineers. If the software engineers like potatoes, potato farmers stand to profit from this. May be also the hairdressers, the tea stall owners. Is there enough data globally to claim that this sort of intersectorial bonds work universally? The short answer is no and even Jagdish Bhagwati would admit to that. Then how is growth alone enough in a country of 1.2 billion of which a whopping 50% are still too poor to use toilets? This is Amartya Sen's argument. Is the philosophy of growth working for Gujarat itself? Let's compare the latest data for the human development indicators for the major Indian states (specifically, Gujarat and West Bengal, the two states Bhagwati and Sen are from). Life expectancy at birth (Male): Gujarat - 64.9, WB - 67.4; Life expectancy at birth (Female): Gujarat - 69, WB - 71; Infant mortality (Male): Gujarat - 39, WB - 30; Infant mortality (Female): Gujarat - 42, WB - 34; Birth rate (per thousand): Gujarat - 27.7, WB - 16.3; Death rate (per thousand): Gujarat - 6.7, WB - 5.2. I am only comparing Gujarat with West Bengal, a state that has been ravaged by two partitions, more than 10 million refugees in 1971 alone, and huge continuous influx of poor people from the neighboring Indian states and Bangladesh. Even then the human indicators of Gujarat (that has suffered none of the above) are far worse than Bengal's. Needless to say how they compare with Kerala's the state with the best indicators in the country. How do the supporters of the growth alone school explain this?
MAJOR BLOW TO MODI as even Aakar doesn't want to write about him this week!
Its a centuries old wisdom. All India calls them Baniya with a capital B. No need to redefine.
Well Said. Bhagwati is living in the ivory tower. One should ask him how come India is now hungrier than it was 40 years ago? How come Vietnam with less growth reduced more poverty? http://qz.com/92339/india-is-surviving-on-less-food-than-it-did-four-decades-ago/ India is surviving on less food than it did four decades ago http://www.aae.wisc.edu/mwiedc/papers/2013/Basole_Amit.pdf The Calorie Consumption Puzzle in India: An Empirical Investigation "Vietnam has already reduced the poverty rate from 60 percent in 1993 to less than 30 percent right in 2002 and just 10 percent currently." http://www.dztimes.net/post/politics/un-expert-hails-vietnam-s-poverty-reduction-efforts.aspx The reason is lack of substantive land reforms:' http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/PRU/vietnam.pdf
Sen and most of Sicklurists want "to give a man a fish a day" so that he is dependent on the doles from th ruling class. Free food, free house to live, free midday meals for the children,free school uniform, free laptop. free ELECTRICITY, almost free cooking gas and on the top of this FREE DIRECT CASH TRANSFER IN THOUSANDS of Indians (as a bribe) who have been kept poor by delibrate policies of the ruling CONgress since 1947. This helps them use, misuse and even abuse uneducated, helpless and dependent voters as their vote bank to win back to back elections so that they can indulge in scams worh thousands of billion rupees each year with impunity.
Modi, on the other hand believes in "teaching every man how to fish" so that he can become selfsufficient and live a life with dignity and positive outlook for the future of his children. Modi in his last Budget has more funds allocated for the skill development of Gujaratis than the entire allocation on this head by the central government of India. Can't you see the diference?
The funny thing is that the CONgress has declared those who make less than Re 27 a day in villages and Re 32 a day in cities, are ABOVE the line of poverty. This is a cruel joke to the poor Indians who make Re 120 a day and cannot feed a family of five, forget about any expenses on health, sanitation, schooling and housing. Less than $2 a day per capita is the international standard for measuring poverty in many poor countries. This is almost Re 120 a day.
The CONgress ruling party know the reality and that is why it has brought an ordinance for almost free food to 75% of Indian population (850 million hungry souls) in July 2013. They want to bribe poor hungry voters by such gimicks, which will cost tax payers something around 150,000 crores. We already have free misday meal scheme for all children which costs government almost 80,000 crroes. These allocations are mainly to let the party workers and leaders collect almost 75% of funds, nothing else as corruption is so deep in Indian secularist regimes.
Akbar Ahmed would do a favor to collect the data such as the amount of funds (central taxes, excise, customs, port taxes, airfair taxes, corporate taxes, Central Income taxes, sales taxes, taxes on petrol and diesel, electric taxes, gas taxes, service taxes on professions and technical/financial workers and many more types) colleced by the central government from the relatively developed (technical/service/business) developed states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat and compare to what is being collected from Ganda-belt states such as UP, BIHAR and WB. Similarly he should find out how much central funds are being allocated to UP/BIHAR/WB compared to developed states like Gujarat/Karnatka/Punjab. Infact the Ganda-belt states are living on a dole coming from developed states like Maharashtra or Gujarat.
People like Sen have an ideology which is malign businessmen and right-wing politicians. Proof is in the pudding. Go visit UP/BIHAR/WB and then Gujarat or Punjab in deep. You will notice the difference. People in Gujarat are busy in constructive work of creating wealth and reinvesting it in India which gives jobs to many skiled and unskilled migrant workers from all over India, more specifically from BIHAR and UP. I read that Gujarat welcomes almost 20,000 migrant workers EVERY MONTH in Gujarat and all live and work peacefully under Modi's model.
If it were not the state of developed states, poor states would have run into social chaos or food riots by now.
Anti-India point of view for the anti India viewers. Keep it up.
there is so much wealth in india but unfortunately it's not trickling to the have nots i.e muslims. instead its finding its way to london property recent economist report that indians are buying the most expensive property in london thereby pricing the local brits out of the market. it begs the question why don't they spend that money on the welfare of fellow indians.
@ Author: Ambanis are not the right Gujarati example. They hardly have a long enough family .history. More than individuals, Gujaratis contributed collectively to build institutions. let me list few for the author. First Business school ( AIIBM Ahmedabad) was build by Gujarati businessmen with Sarabhais taking the lead. Government came scene much later. Same is true of ATIRA ( the Textile Institute in Ahmedabad) which was built by textile Mill owners of Ahmedabad. Gujarat Cancer Research institute was set up by Gujarat Cancer Society with donations from individuals. First Pharmacy College was also built same way. There are loads of such institutions in Gujarat which were built by individual contributions. Baniyas usually don't give large donations, but certainly contribute small amounts for public goods. When these small contributions are pooled, one can create big institutions. As per Bhagwati model one will see more and more individuals who will generate enough money and contribute to build institutions as per social needs of the time. May be India needs an intelligent mix of both the models.
What people like Mr Sen want is perpetual poverty for people.......Why give them everything free??????.......instead create a spirit of entrepreneurship among poor people by spending the money on skill development.........
Baniyas are rich because they work hard.......if they pay taxes properly it is not there duty to feed lazy people...........There is enough work in India........
remember Mr Dhirubhai Ambani also started as a daily laborer.........
Anything said against Modi govt is definately right for Mr patel
@patel:if u are given a choice i know u will distribute all the wealth of jains,sikhs,christians,hindus,parsis, etc. etc. who all study science and economics and take all pain in their lives to all such people who think they can invent anything by reading a religious book and reading the book make them pure of them all...........my friend i know ur mentality kind of people...when some one will ask u who are u u will tell am a muslim with proud feeling......and u ask 2.5 crore Indians living all over the world they will give u one word......INDIAN.......stop ur biased topics in paki papers...i know u are not given a chance to write in Indian newspaper...but its ok....in between...Indian billionares are crap...except to name a few like azim premji,shiv nadar,narayanmurthy,tata....etc...etc...but its a hard earned money for others...
et.........dont sensor..he is my country fellow..............
Poor Aakar - so much to whine about and so little time. A day off from Modi bashing however.