Prof.Amartya Sen says ‘Modi gives faith that things can happen?’
Why be enigmatic, become more specific, make sense to the common man!
Why Modi created fear in the intellectuals? In his own party there is silence on the part of progressive elements!
Prime Minister Modi has “abolished “the Planning Commission that was in existence for 65 years. His new body is called in a more elaborate and new unconventional name, something like National Institution for Transforming India, NITI Aayog. The same types of people will be members, from Prime Minister to Chief Minister and lieutenant Governors of UTs.
With some experts. Though this is considered Mr.Modi’s original idea, it seems it is not.
Economic development is the new body’ objective and the old body’s is no different. The media termed the new body as replacing the old body’s emphasis on socialist economy.
Now, there is clearly the view that Mr.Modi might go for giving corporate a great say in economic policy making. Whether he does or not, it is already pointed out by someone being a professor at the Professor at the Centre for The Study of Developing Societies. He had in fact referred to the direct reference to Mr.Gautam Adamni, Mr.Modi’s close corporate crony who was assisted by the government with one billion dollar loan from the SBI with the blessings of Mr.Modi in Australian mining. While, the same academic points out that the new government had effected cuts in health and education budgets.
In fact, the criticism was in the context of Prof.Amartya Sen’s latest comment on Modi government where Sen says that Modi(Express Adda posted on the web on December 22,2014),Sen observing ” did give people a sense of faith that things can happen”.
This, we say, is a great betrayal to the Indian people.
There are many eminent Indian intellectuals abroad, mostly in teaching jobs. They sometimes engage in public discussions too. In the UK too we have some names.
But what we find very disappointing is that they are either afraid of their employers both in the USA and UK or they are typical of their Indian fellow counterparts who are so afraid they don’t open their mouths at all when it comes to the new government.
How can intellectuals keep mum when people go about asking for installing statues for Nathuram Godse the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi?
How economic experts can can keep mum when Mr.Modi in his own way dares to abolished the Planning Commission and announce another name in its place which doesn’t have anything original or revolutionary or even mildly innovative.
To talk of abolishing the socialist planning commission with another is simply funny.
Economics is a serious business, it is not easy to do anything revolutionary to induce growth. Great economists like Lord Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter and even now, economists like Lawrence Summers are there to give us some new and innovative thoughts. The latest names, Homs Piketty and the latest French economist who won the Nobel Prize this year can help us to come out with really serious new ideas that can ensure equity and social justice to our new economic vision.
Why Mr.Modi hasn’t been able to effect any radical changes in economic policy in the last seven months?
Economic policy making for a country like India calls for wide knowledge of the global economic trends and also what has been done and achieve end by big economies, USA, EU and other countries.
To talk of corporate interests in India is to promote or give room for crony capitalism.
Every other corporate leader would always praise those in power.
This they did, when Mr.Manmohan Singh was the PM. See what Singh had led to? He lost all his reputation by aspiring to continue to remain the PM. Dr.Singh, Prof.Sen and Dr.Jagdish Bhagwati were close colleagues at the Delhi School of Economics.
They remain friends even now. But his friends, great moral philosophers and thinkers, didnt help Dr.Singh. They should have warned him and advised him. They didn’t.
Now, also, these famous gentlemen are keeping silent. For what reasons? We are not sure.But Prof.Sen has the reputation of a great moral philosopher. This makes his task doubly critical. Sen must really speak out his mind on the economic planning body. Also, Sen must speak out, much more critically on the many doings of Mr.Modi and his colleagues.
RSS is doing many things that are disturbing.RSS is disturbing the social harmony of religions and society.
Also, to remain silent when someone like The Jan Sangh and the niece of Godse to call for installing Godse’s statues all over India is not an innocent affair.
Such approach under Modi to change the basic beliefs of the Indian people, to drop secularism as if it is a sacrilege is really condemnable.
Sen is a competent person to explain and put secularism in the new context.The silence of the Indian intellectuals is nothing but the hangover of the British-time mental baggage of servility.
The foreign employers of the Indian talent are also equally bossy when these Indians seek to break out of the employers’ own pride and prejudices.
The time has come when there must be freedoms of free expressions, even the Indian media, both print and TV is equally apprehensive of the Modi government.
Is India a really free country? I am not sure.
See the media reports. AlZazeera journalists are persecuted in Egypt. There is no response from the Indian brethren.
As for economists here are only one or two observations only.
Economic growth can’t be brought about, in a social justice perspective by giving free rein to corporate interests. There has to be strict regulatory system to see that private capitalists don’t turn the Indian economy and polity into an oligarchy or blatantly crony capitalism, as it had become in the last stages of the UPA-II.
We need so many regulatory oversight, we need Lokpal, Lokayukta etc.
At least let there be a new debate. This is our only concern.