Re: Critical Reply to Dr Sabhlok

["Dr. Sanjeev Sabhlok" <sanjeev@sabhlokcity.com>]

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Thanks, Prof. Roy. Wherever facts are not what I had thought they were, I
stand fully corrected. That is one of the purposes of such forums: to
elucidate the facts.

1.	State finances:

I understand you did not quite like my mentioning the state finance issue.
Apologies, but I submit my 'defence' below, for whatever it is worth.

When a national meeting has been called wherein Principal Secretary,
Finance from my state, Meghalaya has attended, I see little justification
to treat this issue in confidence. Until that meeting was held last month,
I held off on this, for a few months, now. I do believe in honoring
requests of confidentiality and I did. But now I am convinced the
authorship of these new principles of state finance  cannot be in question.
Once you have presented these to a forum, your copyrights are established,
and we ought to move into an open discussion/ debate. We all ought to learn
more about this as citizens and see what gains will be obtained by us
through these revised presentation of States accounts. I you wish I can
summarize what I understood of your work, though there again there is the
risk of exhibiting partial understanding. But either way, this is entirely
upto you and if you wish, I will simply close this topic.

2.	Regarding the memos:

>>I repeat my request to him to send us the memos he submitted to
>>Rajiv Gandhi in early 90s. Hiding this material from greater exposure is
>>doing injustice
>
>-- not really, all in due course.  The Memos were as such published in the
>middle pages of The Statesman July 31 1991, August 1, August 2 1991, after
>Rajiv's death.   The story of their impact has yet to be told.

I think we would benefit if these memos as permitted for placing on IPI's
pages. I can scan these/ get them typed. Your call, again.

3.	Gurucharan Das:

>Shri Gurcharan Das (who may be on this list?) was on TV this morning saying
>no one had critiqued Nehru's economics -- he might like to look at my 1984
>work which is now on the IPI site and the London Times lead editorial of
>May 29 1984 on the day I published(when Indira was very much still in power
>and the Berlin Wall was very much intact.)  Shri Das, as an established
>member of the Delhi intelligentsia, has evidently just published a book
>with Alfred Knopff about himself -- will it contain any mention of the real
>record of the Indian reform?  Does it mention Shenoy let alone others?  I
>would be pleased if it did.

Have not read that book. I suspect though, that

(a) Not everyone in the liberal stream in India would be fully aware of
your work. Many liberal political and social thinkers have not read
economics, and many late students of the discipline like me were liberals
from various philosophical and existential traditions rather than economic
(and I am still only learning, trying to make up my mind on many economic
and non-economic issues). Second,

(b) it is not necessary that all history be 'correct.' Subjective
interpretation of the past is what most can manage, and Sh.Das is perhaps
not quite an economic historian.

I suggest you set the record straight regarding the 1991 'reform' through a
formal write-up. Wider publicity to the Rajiv Gandhi memos can be a
starting point. Again, that is entirely your call.

With regards,

Sanjeev

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