Bibek Debroy and the unbearable lightness of being an economist

Seeing that I prefer fountain pens, Bibek Debroy suggested that I should write an economic history of India, telling the story through the decline of fountain pens manufacturing post-Independence. 

Interesting idea, but it doesn’t excite me, I replied politely, grateful for the encouragement. He subsequently mentioned this meeting in an op-ed, and later also wrote the book with a co-author.

Fountain pens delighted him, and he was proud of his collection. But apart from an aficionado, he was a fluent user of the pen’s might, which made him an influential political economy commentator. With his untimely death, the government has lost its most important public voice on the economy. 

Its chief spokesperson on the economy, Arun Jaitley, died in 2019. Debroy was one of the two individuals it has looked to since then for communicating its point of view, and shaping the public discourse. 

Also read: Mint Quick Edit | Debroy’s right, we need a revised poverty line

Debroy’s newspaper op-eds, written at the rate of nearly one a day, were often preludes to big changes ahead. India’s politics changed this year, not long after he argued in a Mint ope-ed that the Constitution wasn’t working too well and needed change.

In 2012, he wrote a piece in The Economic Times arguing that the government led by then prime minister Manmohan Singh had found the resolve to perform, averted a sovereign-rating drop and ended its “policy paralysis.” 

If the image still stuck, as Debroy wrote, a key reason was the opposition’s noisy political campaign. It’s probably why Lutyens’ Delhi was so puzzled in June 2014, when, barely days after being sworn in, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a book that had been edited, besides Ashley J. Tellis and Reece Trevor, by Debroy. 

There was less surprise when Debroy was named a member of the new Niti Aayog. His parting with the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies over flattering reports on Gujarat published under his watch had become a part of Lodhi Garden chatter by then, and was seen as a fitting qualification.

Debroy swayed the government on a few policy decisions. He got it to merge the railway budget with the general budget. Railway minister Suresh Prabhu helpfully agreed to have his portfolio deglamourized. How many ministers could he expect to be as reform-minded?

The Niti Aayog, it was soon obvious, would not inform policymaking beyond a point. Debroy quit it in 2017 to take up the role of an economic advisor to the PM. 

His illustrious predecessors include I. G. Patel, C. Rangarajan and Suresh Tendulkar, towering figures in the world of economic policy, courteous without being biddable, who spoke truth to power. 

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Patel had quit prime minister A.B. Vajpayee’s economic advisory council in protest after the 2002 riots. Under Rangarajan and Tendulkar, Singh’s economic advisory council was critical of bad policies, and vocal about what it thought would be superior policies. 

But these well-argued publications hardly led to any policy improvements. The council under Debroy didn’t produce such reports; its contribution to economic policy decisions remained minimal. Its members took up themes critical to the ruling party’s politics, such as the share of religious minorities in the population.

In an interview with me, Debroy said that it would have been wiser to roll out a better GST later than to press ahead with it in the form that had been adopted: ”By better, I mean a GST with fewer exemptions and only three tax rates. We are not going to get it.”

Having to defend politics in the garb of economics made him lose his cool sometimes. In 2016, he made headlines for saying that demonetization had only given the economy a “minor cold.” 

When I asked him about concerns expressed by some economists about the government’s hesitance to take sound advice, he replied: “Sometimes what people really mean is, ‘I am not being consulted, therefore the government is not consulting’.” 

Asked about the reversal of trade reforms, he said: “If trade economists are saying I should run helter-skelter, throwing all caution to the winds, sign this or that trade agreement, as government, I’ll naturally say: Wait a minute!… If the world is one of protectionism, of trade frictions… the primary engine for economic growth will have to be consumption, investment and government expenditure, not net exports. Stating this is just recognition of reality, not protectionism.”

At times, explaining away gaps in policy didn’t go far. Debroy led a team of experts to produce a rebuttal to doubts cast on the credibility of India’s GDP estimates by former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian. Years later, public confidence in the GDP estimates remains low.

Also read: What Bibek Debroy thinks of jobs, taxes and the economy

Four days before his death, Debroy, ailing and reflective, penned a self-obituary. He wrote about his love for translating Sanskrit texts and of limericks, about the time he spent in hospital, a monkey that appeared at his window, the pointlessness of much of his work and of any awards that may be conferred on him posthumously—the fleeting significance of life. 

The economy was missing from his musings. He, who always had a way with words, settled for the eloquence of silence in the end, perhaps.