April 26, 1999
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KAUTILYA One Great Indian Ambedkar as a market friendly economist. By Jairam Ramesh April 14 marked the birth anniversary of one of the most remarkable and inspiring Indians of all time, a man who fought prejudice and discrimination all his life but scaled the peaks of intellectual achievement as few have done anywhere. Bhim Rao Ambedkar was more than an icon who gave pride, dignity, self-respect and political power to one-sixth of India. He was the man who chaired the committee that drafted the Constitution which committed the world's most stratified and hierarchical civilisation to the ideals of equal opportunity. He was the man who piloted the revolutionary Hindu Code Bill in its initial phases. And he was the man who rediscovered for Indians, in an unusually original way, one of India's greatest gifts to the world -- Buddhism. But what few know is that Ambedkar was also among the earliest Indian scholars in economics. He was, in fact, a double PhD. His first was in 1916 from Columbia and was called "The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India". In 1918, he wrote a brilliant paper in the Journal of the Indian Economic Society, drawing attention to the small size of farms in India and the tendency towards fragmentation and stressed that industrialisation must precede consolidation. In 1922, he received a second doctorate from the University of London for "The Problem of the Rupee". This work has contemporary relevance as well. Ambedkar argued for devaluation since India's textile and other exports were being hurt by British policies. His evidence before the Hilton-Young Commission in 1926 is a masterly exposition on exchange-rate management. Subsequently, Ambedkar did not write much on economics. He had little sympathy for the Gandhians, who he felt were anti-industry. He also had little time for Marxists, dismissing them as Brahmin boys not sufficiently committed to furthering the cause of parliamentary democracy, so essential for India's salvation. He also differed from the socialists, who he felt were wishing away caste, the basic Indian reality. Ambedkar's early writings reveal his firm belief in state socialism largely because of his fears that private enterprise would accentuate social inequalities. At the same time, he pointed out that Lord Buddha praised the moral accumulation of wealth. He held that collectivisation of agriculture along the Soviet model was the only way for securing Dalit welfare. As a member of the viceroy's executive council, Babasaheb made notable contributions to industrial relations and social security. One of his grouses against Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was that the latter had reneged on a promise to give him charge of the Planning Commission, a job he very much wanted. In recent years, there has been a renewal of interest in Ambedkar's economic philosophy. Many Dalit ideologues have lambasted the economic reforms saying they will hurt the Dalits. But there are others, like Narendra Jadhav, who believe Ambedkar would have supported a social-market economy. Nagesh Chaudhury, Divakar Bhoyar and Siddharth Kamble have written that participation in a global economy has been a part of Dalit heritage -- unlike the upper castes, who prefer a closed economy. Gail Omvedt, sociologist-activist and a student of Ambedkar for three decades, feels he would have been pragmatic and looked for the most effective combination of state, market and community roles. She created quite a stir a year ago with her thesis that the pre-1991 economic system was actually an upper-caste construct that had little for Dalits. That globalisation can assist in the empowerment of Dalits can be seen from the socio-economic impact the growth of the leather industry has had in states like Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Here is a fine example of how swadeshi can be married to globalisation. But opportunities are being missed. Over the past decade, India's share of the world market in leather and leather goods has declined from 8.5 per cent to around 3.5 per cent. The main worry of many Dalit thinkers is that public sector employment, including in government, is shrinking. This is a legitimate concern, particularly since more than the income aspect such employment has great prestige value and has done a good deal to break down social inequities. It has created a Dalit middle class that is around two million strong. But the size of the government and of the public sector has to shrink if the country is to grow and create wealth faster. How we do this while safeguarding the social aspirations of Dalits is a big challenge. Private industry too must pay greater attention to affirmative action. Technical and professional education opportunities for Dalits must expand and this has to be done by the government. To the extent that reforms will enhance the capability of the government to invest more in infrastructure like irrigation and education, Dalits will benefit. It is certainly in their interest that the government reorients the pattern of public spending, a fundamental tenet of liberalisation. The great paradox is that the so-called social justice parties of the north have not made land reforms, minimum wages, primary education, health, nutrition and gender equality part of their agenda. Unlike in the south and in the west, the Dalit struggle in the north is for political power. This is a worthwhile objective. But there has to be something more to social justice than political power and reservations in government jobs. The author is secretary of the AICC's
Economic Affairs Department. |
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