BOOK REVIEW. A rendezvous with North Block

Kaushik Basu is now senior vice-president and chief economist at World Bank, on leave from Cornell University. Between December 2009 and July 2012, he was chief economic adviser (CEA) to the government of India. The trigger for this book is his stint as CEA and his role in helping formulate policies.

Though he did (and does) keep a diary, this volume isn’t that. “My Delhi diary is too fresh to be published. There are also difficult ethical questions associated with such verbatim reporting so soon after having had the privilege of an insider’s view. So while I have dipped into my diary occasionally, for an amusing incident here and an important policy conundrum there, strictly what is expected of a diary — the “revelations” and notes on personalities — the reader will not find here.”

Hence, there are no such details, salacious or otherwise. Other CEAs have written books on the Indian economy in their post-CEA days. Bimal Jalan, Deepak Nayyar, Shankar Acharya and Rakesh Mohan come to mind. But those were books on the Indian economy, they weren’t personalised. (Bimal Jalan’s personalised book was about his stint in politics, not economics.)

Ashok Desai was chief consultant, not CEA, with the finance ministry between 1991 and 1993. This book reminded me a bit of his My Economic Affair , published in 1994.

Many economists write boring and turgid stuff, meant for fellow economists to read. Kaushik writes well, even if he is writing for fellow economists. He has a flair for personalising even academic papers, a trait he shares with his mentor, Amartya Sen.

More importantly, he also writes for non-economists. Economic Graffiti (1991), An Economist’s Miscellany (2011) and perhaps even Beyond the Invisible Hand (2010) are a bit like that. This volume, with 10 chapters, belongs to the same genre.

Some of those 10 chapters cover topics such as India’s growth story, inflation, fiscal and macroeconomic policies, globalisation, food and poverty and law and economics.

With the possible exception of law and economics, this is staple fare for most economists.

No doubt, most reviewers will pick on the law and economics chapter and the sections on corruption, since his views on legalising bribe-giving attracted a lot of attention at the time (DEA Working Paper, then EPW article, 2011).

For me, this book is delightful for a different reason. The chapter on India’s growth story begins with the Coffee House at the Delhi School of Economics. It is the style of writing that makes a difference.

Here is a quote from the first chapter. “It all happened so quickly that the adjustment was hard. I took up office on December 8, 2009. As I got out of my government car, laptop and briefcase slung over my shoulder, a man came charging and snatched these from me. Since I’d experienced a similar incident when my wallet was taken from me near St Marks Square in Venice, I had to resist the urge to run after the man and wrestle him to the ground. I did not know then that he was one of my two “men Friday”, who would be lodged in my adjacent office for the duration of my term as CEA and loyally run minor errands, thereby contributing to a small improvement in India’s unemployment statistic.”

Alternatively, “The driver assigned to ferry me around in my government-given white Ambassador car was a senior member from the Finance Ministry’s retinue of chauffeurs. The first time I got into the front seat and reached for my seatbelt, my driver, who knew that I had come from academe to high government office, turned to me and said helpfully, ‘Sir, now that you are the chief economic adviser, you don’t need to wear a seat belt any more’.”

The first incident is certainly true. In front of North Block in the morning, you will find a retinue of peons (called multi-tasking operators now) waiting for their Robinson Crusoes to turn up. Since Kaushik says the second incident occurred, it must be true. However, it is somewhat unusual.

At the end of the Preface, Kaushik writes, “This book is written in the hope that the principles and policies outlined in it can be used for development policy to reach out to them (the poor and marginalised) wherever they are, whatever their nationality. In that sense this may be viewed as a book on practical development economics, with India as the illustrative model, but with lessons for all developing countries.”

Since one can take liberties with a friend, I think this was written wearing the World Bank hat. The poor are important and so is development economics.

But for that, I would read Kaushik Basu’s Analytical Development Economics (1987), suitably updated, if necessary. As for this book, it is worth reading because it is good fun.

But let me not convey the wrong impression. With the Budget imminent, what will agitate North Block minds now? The list will include growth, inflation, fiscal policy, food security and anti-poverty programmes.

If you are a non-economist and not conversant with policy issues that agitate the minds of policymakers, each of these is covered in this volume and there is plenty of value addition.

Kaushik has a certain ideological position. I don’t know whether this is coincidence and/or whether he has noticed it. That ideological position is less pronounced here than it was in Beyond the Invisible Hand . Perhaps that is because the topics are slightly different.

The reviewer is an economist and a member of the NITI Aayog

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