An intellectual mentor with a kind heart, great mind

Sanjaya Lall was born in Patna, India and worked on Indian themes from time to time. However, his concerns were much wider. He was perhaps less well known here than abroad, particularly in academia, international think tanks and well-known research institutions. He was enormously prolific as a writer, a policy advisor and a teacher. Apart from a brief spell at the World Bank in the 1960s, Lall was affiliated with Oxford University for most of his professional career. He was appointed Professor of Development Economics at Oxford, which is a highly distinguished position at this ancient university. Although his work was extremely wide-ranging, an abiding and continuing concern was to understand what it took for a country to acquire, retain and upgrade its technological capability in industry, and the correct role for government in this process. In his view, acquiring mastery of complex modern technologies is a demanding, risky task which merited active government support. He was cognizant of the possibility and costs of so-called ‘‘government failure’’.

But he also believed that the East Asian experience (particularly the case of Korea) provided a clear case of the possibility of successful government intervention. In East Asia, the risks of inefficiency had been well-contained by forcing protected firms to compete in the international market. He also felt passionately that the now developed countries were denigrating or denying instruments of intervention to the latecomers that had been central to their own industrial development.

Like several other economists, Lall was a critic of Indian industrial policies in the 1960s and 1970s as he felt that India had the benefit of substantial technological and skill advantages, but that the protection provided had been squandered leaving it inward looking and uncompetitive in trade and industry. While he welcomed the liberalisation of the 1990s, he was conscious that the legacy of the past was still with us as was shown by the continued indifferent performance of the manufacturing sector. On the other hand, the recent strong growth of knowledge-intensive sectors such as pharmaceuticals and auto ancillaries was a sign that Indian economic potential was high, and that with the right policies it could become a leading economic power.

Sanjaya was an intellectual mentor to innumerable young Indians and other students pursuing their higher studies abroad. In the words of one close associate ‘‘while always very busy and sought after by many governments and institutions, he always made time to reply to various queries and requests. More than an advisor, he was a friend and a mentor whose energy and dedication inspired all who came in contact with him.’’ Sanjaya is survived by his wife Rani and three children, Maya, Prya and Ranjit to whom he was devoted.

To end on a somewhat personal note, the two of us got to know Sanjaya at different times, at different places and in different contexts. And yet our sense of deep loss is the same. A person with a kind heart and a great mind seems to affect all those who happen to know him or her in the same way.