Well-known economist Jagdish Bhagwati has criticised noted economist and Bharat Ratna Amartya Sen saying he’s the only economist to have hurt India’s poor twice.
Speaking to a news channel Bhagwati, who has been critical of Amartya Sen’s model of growth, said that the Nobel laureate has actually hurt the poor in India by not really supporting the reforms in 1991 and pushing for Food Security Bill which would create inflation. When asked about his choice for a Prime Minister, Bhagwati said he has no particular affection either for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi or for Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi.
“I am not going to vote for Modi. I have no particular affection for him. But I have no particular affection for Rahul Gandhi also. I want all of the progressive people, no matter which party they belong to, to look at the ideas we are proposing and show where they stand and what they are going to do with these ideas,” Bhagwati said. When asked specifically about Modi as Prime Minister, Bhagwati said he would not go by personalities and like to see what their platforms and their programmes are. “I would also like to see debates between them like in America,” he mentioned. He said he was in favour of social indicators and social progress and the reason why he liked the Gujarat model was that growth has taken place on social indicators.
“I don’t know what his (Modi) model is. What has happened in Gujarat is that relatively rapid growth has taken place. He has actually been very good about getting license cleared very fast, he has added to electricity supply which is a big problem...All of which is exactly the way development takes place and then I also find that social progress has taken place,” Bhagwati said of Modi’s governance. Bhagwati, a pro-liberal and market-oriented economist, however, did not want to get into the debate over whether Sen should be stripped of the Bharat Ratna as demanded by BJP MP Chandan Mitra.