Belgian economist Jean Dreze, who has co-authored a book with Amartya Sen, has his ear to the Indian soil. And he hears the rumblings of a Brazil-type quake.
That's a tough request to comply with. And, strangely, for reasons to do with the book itself. India... is no ivory-tower economic treatise replete with differential equations and platitudes. A keen fusion of hard-nosed number-crunching and compassion for the Indian underprivileged, India... outgrows its perceived role of an academic tract to become a humanist document.
Not surprising. Dreze has, throughout his career, defied a conventional academician's role and situated himself—physically—right at the heart of the problems he thinks and writes about. The Belgian arrived in India in 1979 as a 20-year-old with the express objective of getting "exposure to real developmental problems". The keyword is "real". For the last 13 years—he completed his PhD from the Indian Statistical Institute in New Delhi in 1982—Dreze has carefully split his time between research, teaching and fieldwork.
He spent 1983 living in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, to study first-hand the district's developmental problems. Apart from conducting village studies in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, he has also worked in drought-affected areas in Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Before and during the initial phases of the Gulf War, he camped on the border of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, campaigning for peace. After the war, he was in Iraq, studying the impact of economic sanctions. He is currently co-editing a book titled Displacement and Resettlement in the Narmada Valley, along with being a visiting professor at the Delhi School of Economics.
No armchair intellectual constructs for this man. "Generally, in economics, there is excessive focus on pure theory," he says. "Particularly in development economics, it is possible for theories to be completely divorced from reality. Theories can be developed for intellectual satisfaction, but in order to understand the world, it is essential to keep in touch with the roots."
It was in the early '80s that Dreze got to know Amartya Sen, when he studied Sen's work on the economics of famines, and wrote to him. In the letter, he suggested the possibility of studying the Indian experience in famine prevention. Remembers Dreze: "Sen got in touch, advising me to work on a paper for a conference organised by him."
Within just over a decade, the acquaintance has generated several academic collaborations. The latest of these, India..., critiques the blinkered understanding that has characterised the overdose of discussions on liberalisation since 1991. The twosome stress that undue emphasis on the policy's pros and cons has led to the neglect of crucial sectors like health careand elementary education. Remarks Dreze: "Although it is too early to judge, the terms (of the liberalisation agenda) have been too narrow. Even in the urban areas, most people are not even aware of liberalisation, which is not surprising. And, despite all the rhetoric about education getting prime importance, the reverse has happened."
In that case, where will the initiative for bringing about the required development come from? "The politicians cannot be expected to respond because they already have access to private schools, private health care," feels Dreze. Who else, then, will take on the onus if not those who have power? "The momentum has to come from the people, from social movements. It has been seen that the political parties have grossly overlooked issues of relevance. In West Bengal, the CPI(M) has neglected education grossly and concentrated more on land reforms. For good reason, perhaps, but it has been neglect nevertheless."
Several of the world's leading business and economic periodicals have highlighted the Indian economy as bursting with promise, crouching before the feral leap that will earn it its rightful place beside the East Asian tigers—Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia. "Yes, there is this thing about the tiger," Dreze smilingly mumbles. "Though it is partly an expectation, it is not difficult to see through the distortion which is based on the blind faith in the power of markets."
Dreze has another explanation for why such interpretations have been spawned by the foreign press: "To a great extent, it is an illusion generated by foreign correspondents staying in New Delhi. They do not take a broad view of what is not happening because they are con-fined to the nation's capital where all kinds of development are visible." He offers a contrasting example. "Take the case of China where development has taken place across the board, and there has been extraordinary economic activity. Compared to that, India is still a country full of pockets where the process of change has been excruciatingly slow."
It must be strange and exciting for this insider-outsider to watch the unprecedented flux that the Indian economy is currently going through: the death throes of socialism, the careening of the currency, the slide of the savings rate; and the rise of religious fundamentalism and consumption of Coke in ironical tandem. Quo vadis, the economy? "In some ways, it is too early to say," muses Dreze, "but certainly not the East Asia way. Market liberalisation alone cannot bring about a change. All these East Asian countries had excellent records in primary education and health." He continues after a pause, his soft voice thoughtful. "It is possible that India just might go the Brazil way. In Brazil too, the data of economic growth is astonishing. But there are very deep social problems and persistent inequalities. There is a divisive pattern, which might be India's position too in the time to come."
TO be published soon is Dreze's analysis of the development record of Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. While the Kerala case study is essentially a historical account talking of issues like caste reforms, the chapter on Uttar Pradesh—titled "UP: The Burden of Inertia"—studies government failures to run the state with the desired efficiency. Adds Dreze: "There has been an attempt to portray the contrast between Kerala and Uttar Pradesh after ample research." In West Bengal, he says, "while there has been comparative success in things like reduction of poverty, this has gone hand in hand with failures to bring about community involvement". The democratic institutions have been controlled by privileged groups—the main reason why the state has witnessed patchy development during the Left Front rule, he says.
We love easy classifications. An economist who talks of the possibility of India going the Brazil way, whose body of work has been on the great unwashed masses. And he has a wispy beard, wears a khadi kurta, jeans, slippers, and totes a bag. So what if it's not a jhola, it's still damning evidence, isn't it? This man is a Marxist. "Not really, never. In fact, Marx himself was never a Marxist," he answers good-humouredly. "I have studied Marxism though, but with an awareness of what to accept and what not to."
If Dreze challenges the conventional definition of an economist, he also defies any easy ismic classification. "I have never had much natural sympathy for the neo-classical school, and the same for Marxist economics. But I have always been open-minded, and never rejected a school in its totality." This Belgian would rather chart his own unselfconscious course through the economics of injustice and deprivation. And stay away from profile-hunting journalists.
For, it is while posing for a photograph in front of a historical ruin in Delhi's Lodhi Gardens that Jean Dreze appears most embarrassed. "You shall make me look like a tourist," he smilingly complains. The man's gawky posture compels an inward confession: if this economist is a tourist, everyone is.