Ivory tower prescription

An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions by Amartya Sen & Jean Dreze; Penguin; Price: Rs.399; 434 pp

This widely discussed book examines the strange contradiction that even as during the past two decades following the liberalisation and deregulation of the Indian economy in 1991, the country has recorded among the world’s highest annual rates of GDP growth, the standard of living of the great majority of citizens measured by social indicators — education, health, infant mortality — has plunged to new lows.

Jean Dreze, professor of sociology at Delhi University and pro-poor human rights activist, and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen are outraged — and rightly so — that even bottom-of-the-ladder countries such as Bangladesh have surpassed India on many telling human development indicators. They lament the “near-silence” of the intelligentsia and media about a “growth process that is so biased, making the country look more and more like islands of Calif-ornia in a sea of sub-Saharan Africa”.

Your reviewer cannot claim to have grasped the finer nuances of the premier social science that is economics to the extent of the eminent authors of this tome. Nevertheless a good grasp of fundamentals — an awareness that land, labour, capital and enterprise are prime factors of production whose optimal utilisation determine the prosperity of nations and societies — has stood me in good stead. In the circumstances it’s astonishing that the authors with their intellect and creativity, have barely touched on the role of the fourth factor of production, viz, enterprise.

Although Dreze-Sen claim to derive considerable satisfaction from the Indian economy having leapt out of the rut of the so-called Hindu rate of economic growth (3.5 percent per year), there is no acknowledgement that the economy accelerated due to the fourth factor of production — enterprise/entrepreneurship — after being partially released from the chains of the licence-permit-quota regimen. Nor is there unequivocal endorsement that more reforms are needed to encourage private enterprise to restore the growth momentum of the economy.

On the contrary, Dreze-Sen seem to believe that “greater accountability” within government and public sector enterprises (PSEs), which still dominate the commanding heights of the Indian economy, is the answer to maintaining high GDP growth. However no proposals are offered on how to extract greater accountability to attain the desideratum of improved  productivity within the country’s thoroughly inefficient and corrupt PSEs and 18-million strong (Centre plus states) bureaucracy, which are draining the life blood of the Indian economy. The obvious solution to this endemic problem is to abate, if not eliminate cronyism and corruption. This requires more police, courts, judges, an autonomous CBI and Lok Pal among other law, order and justice reforms. But neither anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare nor the independent Lok Pal (ombudsman) movement which convulsed the nation last year, find any mention in this volume.

Although Dreze-Sen are well aware that less than four centuries ago the subcontinent was one of the wealthiest regions of the world where workers’ wages were higher than in Europe, they gloss over the reality that this wealth was created by merchants and traders, while the attention of the State was focused on law and order maintenance and governance. Quite clearly, the current inequalities of income, education, healthcare, gender etc they highlight in great detail are the outcome of the State’s direct engagement with industry and business — the Statist development model they seem to favour. But they are unable to make — or are in denial of the connection between over-governance and the sorry mess of post-independence India which they  copiously lament.

The plain truth is that economists and intellectuals isolated in the ivory towers of academia tend to be business illiterate, and although sincere and engaging, An Uncertain Glory confirms this belief. With their rich careers in academia, the erudite authors of this book have made a detailed and accurate diagnosis of the major maladies of the Indian polity, but they don’t have the cure.

The ivory tower isolation of Dreze-Sen is also manifest in the aptly titled chapter ‘The centrality of education’. One would expect these globally-respected academics to provide a brilliant explanation of why education in this subcontinent which was once a global centre of learning and knowledge creation, has been reduced to the pitiable condition of hosting over 400 million illiterates, an equal number of quasi-literates, and barely 10 percent of the remainder possessing high order comprehension, analysis and problem solving skills. But here too, while the recitation of the maladies of Indian education is excellent, Dreze-Sen have no remedy to offer. On the contrary, they take pains to point out that there is no alternative to government-provided education despite the “shockingly low quality of Indian schooling”.

A measure of their distance from grassroots developments in Indian education is their seeming unawareness of new ideas and solutions such as leasing government schools to NGOs and charter schools, let alone the reality of a continuous flight of even the poorest households to private ‘budget’ schools whose existence is threatened by the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. Nor are they aware that new media and technologies are changing the education landscape and offer the hope of radical upgradation of teaching-learning standards in Indian education. And needless to say the authors of this tome have never seen or heard of EducationWorld which for the past 13 years has been intensively reporting and debating remedial solutions — precisely the issues highlighted by them in their magnum opus.

Undoubtedly An Uncertain Glory is an important and valuable addition to the national development debate inasmuch as it brings the economic growth versus human development debate into sharp focus. Although it would be safe to dismiss this as a chicken-and-egg conundrum, there’s no doubt that in the final analysis sustained economic growth is the precondition of improving the general condition of the populace.

Ideally economic growth and human development are mutually reinforcing — a healthy and well-educated population enables economic growth. But as the failed Indian national development effort has proved, runaway State-funded welfare schemes within the contextual framework of soft-state democracy are not the solution but a prescription for pervasive corruption and unremitting inflation.

Even if they refuse to learn from the histories of democratic nations which have progressed from primitive capitalism driven by private enterprise to universal welfare, one would expect intellectuals of the calibre of Dreze-Sen to have derived some lessons from post-independence India’s failed development experience.

Dilip Thakore

Holistic education pioneer

What Life Could Mean To You — The Psychology of Personal Development by Alfred Adler;  Oxford (first South Asian edition); Price: Rs.495; 250 pp

As dismal statistics relating to primary, secondary and higher education in India readily testify and with schools, colleges, teachers, and professors not matching up to academic requirements of the student comm-unity, the onus of education and personal development of the nation’s children is incrementally devolving upon students themselves (through self-study), and the parents’ community. Against this backdrop Oxford University Press has done well to print the first South Asia edition of this title by Alfred Adler.

A contemporary of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, and core member of the famous Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Alfred Adler (1870-1937) is best remembered as the father of ‘individual psychology’, a school he founded after an ideological split with Freud. Distinguished for his study of the inferiority complex, in his prolific writings Adler examined the theme of holistic personality development spanning child-rearing, character development, gender egalitarianism, community spirit, marital harmony and education.

In his 300 articles and books, Adler explored and developed the theme of a meaningful life as one in which an individual is able to properly relate to herself as well as to the social environment. For this, it’s essential every individual receives appropriate nurturance as a child.

Essentially an educationist, Adler was the first behavioural scientist to conduct research on the impact of parenting and early childhood education upon children. He was the first intellectual to warn that parental obligations extend far beyond mere material provision, discipline and control of children. Parental attitudes, behaviour, personalities and conflicts can entirely shape and influence the personality development of children and their psychological stability.

In this insightful psychologist’s world view, school teachers play an equally important role in nurturing balanced, happy and socially contributing citizens. “It is the task of teachers to notice children’s difficulties and to correct parents’ mistakes,” he writes, recommending that to help children learn, teachers must “do exactly what a mother should do — bond with the children and gain their attention”. In particular, he tenders advice which the inadequately trained teachers’ community in India should well bear in mind. “If children come to school and find it difficult to relate to their teachers and fellow pupils, the worst possible thing to do is to criticize and scold them. This approach would only confirm that they were right to dislike school,” writes Adler. Chapter VII of this book titled ‘School influences’ (a mere 17 pages) should be mandatory reading for every educationist, principal and teacher.

Authoritarianism, lack of a loving home environment, and excessive disciplining can easily conduce to the development of criminal personalities. In this valuable work Adler offers corrective and preventive strategies to address the issue of incipient criminality.

How an individual relates to society determines, to a great extent, the course and quality of her life. Often, this is something to which parents don’t pay adequate attention. They tend to assume that a child’s ability to relate harmoniously with others develops automatically and doesn’t require deliberate and conscious prompting.  Adler goes to lengths, stressing the importance of parents consciously teaching social skills, inculcating appropriate attitudes to work, and cultivating the ability to accomm-odate the needs and emotions of others. He devotes an entire chapter to the issue of love and marriage, arguably one of the most complex problems in many people’s lives, and also suggests essentials for enjoying a harmonious family life.

By the time you’ve finished the book you are bound to come to the firm conclusion that a good grounding in responsible, caring, sensitive, and intelligent parenting is an important qualification for couples intending to add another life into this crowded planet.

Yoginder Sikand