Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the 2019 Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee. He called the meeting with PM a unique experience and remarked, “I had a cordial and good meeting. PM Modi started by cracking a joke on how media is trying to trap me to say anti-Modi things… He’s been watching the TV and he’s been watching you guys. And he knows what you are trying to do.”
In the last few days, Banerjee has made several positive comments on policies of the Modi government. He praised the increased efficiency in welfare targeting under the leadership of PM Modi, he also praised Ayushman Bharat scheme and said, “I think it is very much needed.”
For much of his career, Banerjee has been critical of Modi government’s socio-political policies. From the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar to cut in corporate taxes, Banerjee criticized almost every decision of the Modi government. He is a typical leftist who was educated and grew up in the left-liberal intellectual environment.
His Mother and Father, both prominent left-wing economists in Communist West Bengal, have regularly published in the Economic and Political Weekly- most prominent leftist magazine. Their articles openly criticized free markets and argued for higher taxation and government regulation of markets.
Banerjee was educated at the Presidency College- a Marxist economics hub since the 1970s, and JNU. During his JNU years, he was even jailed in Tihar for protest against the Vice-Chancellor.
Banerjee, so far, has practised typical leftist economics. He argued that the taxes on the middle class must be raised to fund Congress’s NYAY scheme. In an interview with Rahul Shivshankar of Times Now he categorically said, “No NYAY without tax increase.” In another interview with Rajeev Dubey of Business Today, he said that there is scope for direct as well as an indirect tax increase. When Banerjee was asked what taxes should increase and what are the new taxes that can be imposed, he said, “Income taxes. In principle, there’s scope for wealth taxation and in some sense there’s scope for increasing GST.” However, after winning the Nobel Prize, Banerjee distanced himself from Congress’s NYAY scheme.
Banerjee is a glorified tax terrorist who is looking for a lucrative government post to influence policies.
For any development economist like Banerjee, an influential government job like that of Chief Economic Advisor, Principal Economic Advisor, or Member/chairman of PM Economic Advisory Council is like a dream job, because, there they can test their theories and influence policies.
Therefore, economist and public policy wonks take a job in a government even if they are critical of its policies. India has witnessed very good precedent in this.
Arvind Subramanian, the former Chief Economic Advisor of India, was a critique of Modi government before being chosen for the post. Raghuram Rajan, CEA during UPA government was critical of various UPA policies like MGNREGA, but, he took the job once offered.
Arvind Subramanian, in his book ‘Of Counsel’, mentioned that in past he has been critical of Modi. However, nearly four years of his tenure as CEA, he worked with the government without voicing concerns.
Once he was released from the post, Subramanian made critical comments on demonetization and called it ‘draconian’ in his memoir ‘Of Counsel’, despite the fact that the decision was taken during his tenure as CEA. In June, this year, Subramanian published a paper which claimed that India’s GDP is overestimated by 2.5 per cent. The paper was criticized by renowned economists such as Bibek Debroy, Rathin Roy, Surjit Bhalla, Charan Singh, and Arvind Virmani but, Subramanian maintained his stand.
Banerjee, who has been critical of Modi government so far, will happily take the job offered by the government. But once the tenure gets over, he will be back to rants against the government policies. Therefore, the government should not offer a post to Banerjee just because he is a Nobel Prize winner and praised some of its policies after he got the award.
For criticism of Nobel Prize award in Economics, read the following article:
