Economics, Economists, and the Indian Economy

Abstract

Notes

1. Joseph J. Spengler, Indian Economic Thought, A Preface to its History (Durham: Duke University Press, 1971). A high school classmate of mine attended Duke where he studied with Braibanti in political science. I had opted for Oberlin College where I did economics. We met at a party during the Christmas holidays of 1959. He said he was trying to find someone to take a round-the-world flight on Pan American, where his uncle just happened to be a Vice President. He said that a Duke professor, Braibanti, was the inspiration for the jaunt. Having acquired an interest in Asia myself, I readily agreed. We ended up spending about six weeks in Burma, Nepal, India, and Pakistan, bookended by East Asia on one side and the Soviet Union and continental Europe on the other. Looking back on this memory after some 45 years, I realize that it represents a common story of how personal interests and networks interacted to draw susceptible young people into India studies, even if they were as in my case from a Texas outpost.

I disagree with Spengler's sharp cleavage between proto-economic or pre-analytical economic thought and modern technical, abstract economic theory. See my review in the Journal of Asian Studies (June 1972). Spengler's artificial split between proto-economics and analytical economics is derived directly from the stance put forward by Joseph Alois Schumpeter in his History of Economic Analysis, 2 vols., edited from manuscripts by Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1954).

2. S. Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); equally indispensable is William J. Barber, British Economic Thought and India, 1600–1858 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).

3. Adam Smith, An Inquiry in to the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. by Edwin Canaan, (New York: Random House Modern Library, 1994 [1776]); Canaan's is the standard edition of the book that founded economics as a scientific discipline.

4. Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India, p. 2.

5. The College was by no means monolithic and its students were characterized by indiscipline, readerships were openly sold, and the Directors' interventions cut across efforts to maintain high academic standards. Barber, British Economic Thought and India, 1600–1858, pp. 145–7. The East India College was closed in 1858 when competitive examinations were implemented to select India's civil service.

6. John Maynard Keynes, Indian Currency and Finance (London: Macmillan, 1913).

7. The whole subject of settling land claims is vast and complex. Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India, ch. 5. Also see, W. C. Neale, Economic Change in Rural India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962); and, Ratnalekha Ray, Change in Bengal Agrarian Society c1760–1850 (New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1979).

8. Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India, ch. 3. With respect to both revenue policy and famine policy there were competing strands of thought within the Classical School. There were also distinctions between those who were more dogmatic in their theorizing and those who were more pragmatic, especially when applying abstract principles to India's complex social realities. The role of James Mill in these debates is the most important subject not mentioned in my overview.

9. John Adams, “The Institutional Economics of Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901),” Journal of Economic Issues Vol. V (June 1971), pp. 80–92.

10. Dadabhai Naoroji, Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1901).

11. Ramesh Chunder Dutt, Economic History of India, 2 vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1902, 1904).

12. Friedrich List, The National System of Political Economy (London: Longmans, Green, 1928 [1841]).

13. Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, Congress of the United States, 5 December 1791.

14. Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin intensified the sharpness of criticism of Classical and Neoclassical economics in much of Europe and in the colonial territories, including India, where a robust Marxist tradition found many academic homes and provided a conceptual basis for India's regionally successful political parties. Various socialist traditions likewise were taken up with enthusiasm by Indian intellectuals and politicians.

15. George Rosen, Western Economists and Eastern Economies, Agents of Change in South Asia, 1950–1970 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985).

16. Letter, Nehru to Mayer, May 1, 1946; Box 8, Folder 1, Mayer papers, Library, University of Chicago.

17. George Rosen, then at Rand, and Benjamin Higgins, who wrote the first text on economic development and who was then at the University of Texas, were both on my dissertation committee. Higgins signed my thesis in red ink, much to the consternation of purists in the group. As far as I know, he meant nothing negative by this impulsive action, but I never asked him. My thesis was: “India's Exports, Imports, and Economic Development: 1870–1960,” with Walter C. Neale as its principal supervisor. Neale worked with Rosen and others on the MIT India program.

18. Rosen, Western Economists and Eastern Economies, p. 37.

19. Rosen, Western Economists and Eastern Economies, p. 59.

20. Government of India, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ministry of Community Development and Cooperation, Report on India's Food Crisis and Steps to Meet It (Delhi: Ford Foundation, 1959).

21. Important economic issues were entangled with the PL-480 program under which the United States transferred some of its farm surplus stocks to India and received payment in rupees. Since India as a sovereign government could create as many rupees as it wanted to, there was no direct foreign exchange or real resource cost. The rupees could be spent only on projects approved by the Indians; these normally had to do with educational activities and exchanges in India. Another use was to acquire copies of books published in India, which were then distributed to American libraries, where they were of great value in supporting the Title VI centers' language and cultural studies programs. Some critical Indian economists thought that the build-up of rupee holdings in the banking system contributed to inflationary pressures; others saw the PL-480 imports as depressing local crop prices and returns, thus weakening incentives for Indian farmers to invest and innovate.

22. Rosen, Western Economists and Eastern Economies, ch. 8.

23. Rosen, Western Economists and Eastern Economies, p. 239.

24. I was a Fulbright scholar attached to the University of Bangalore's Department of Economics in 1967–68. Funded by a special relationship with the Danforth Foundation of St. Louis, I was involved in trying to upgrade the content of the BA (Honors) program in economics and to encourage the adoption of the American system of grading by class instructors as opposed to the British–Indian method of collective examinations and anonymous marking, which was feasible only when there is a common syllabus used by all institutions. It was a great and formative year, but I cannot report that I accomplished anything, although a few students still get in touch with me from time to time.

25. I resigned from AAS in the early 1990s with a letter to the then AAS President saying that I had had enough of erotica on Ming vases and of feminist themes in medieval Korean poetry. Ditto on the SAC for the most part and I have not been to Madison for more than a decade.

26. This is plainly not a scientific exercise. I knew some of the people, many quite well, but I did not know others even by reputation: they simply had the bad luck to be the current director of a center or an economist with an Indian name. I do not think there was any difference in the response rate between the people I knew and the people I did not. It is possible that some of the people I know do not know or remember me. I cannot be sure that all of my emails got to their intended targets since a number of people have retired and moved. Some replies were so brief that they could not be counted (e.g. “I forwarded your questions to the head of the center.” Or, “John, good to hear from you but I am now mostly a library archivist and can't provide useful answers”).

27. Here is the email I sent to some 32 Indianists and economists: Dear Colleague: I am working on paper on “Economics, Economists, and the Indian Economy,” in the context of a book on “TheState of India Studies in the United States,” whose other chapters will consider the situation of the other major disciplines. I am writing to you as 1) a center or program director for India or South Asia to seek your assessment of connections, or the lack thereof, with economists on your campus; 2) I am also communicating with representative economists who have shown an interest in India and are located at institutions with area studies centers or distinct programs. We have already had an initial workshop and are now reconvening to complete our studies. The following points, in no particular order, are what I have come up with to organize my chapter. I would appreciate any comments you have on them or on any aspects of the economics-center relationship that I may have overlooked. If you want to have others respond, then that would be fine. I am greatly appreciative of your help and contribution to the project. Many Thanks, John Adams [email protected] Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, University of Maryland Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, Northeastern University Visiting Scholar, Center for South Asian Studies, University of Virginia

28. I thank all the respondents. I hate to engage in parasitic scholarship of the worst kind but feel it was justified to ensure that I was simply not being a curmudgeon wheeling out extreme and uninformed personal opinions.

29. J. Bradford DeLong, “India Since Independence: An Analytic Growth Narrative,” accessible via http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Econ_Articles/India/India_Rodrik_DeLong.PDF; Dani Rodrik and Arvind Subramanian, “From ‘Hindu Growth’ to Productivity Surge: The Mystery of the Indian Growth Transition,” IMF Staff Papers 52, September 2005, pp. 193–228; Jeffrey Sachs, Nirupam Bajpai, Ananthi Ramiah, “Understanding Regional Economic Growth in India,” Asian Economic Papers, 1 (Fall 2002), pp. 32–62.