In 1985, Jahangir Aziz, then 22, preferred Jawaharlal Nehru University to others more because it had a good dormitory. Armed with a bachelor’s degree from St Xavier’s and having “survived” Calcutta University, Aziz did have a blast at JNU. After spending a few months at the Indian Statistical Institute, he headed to the “world’s most libertarian economic department” at the University of Minnesota, US. While both Aziz and his wife Monali Chowdhurie wanted to return home after studies in the US, it took them, well, more than 20 years to finally get back to Delhi.As Principal Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Aziz, now 45, suddenly finds himself in the thick of policy-making in turbulent times: high inflation, slowing growth and general elections early next year. But even as he grapples with the situation, he doesn’t lose his most fantastic trait—a sense of humour that makes riding the storm seem easy. “People practice economics much better in their everyday life than most economists do. Why should we fret then,” he says. It was Ashok Lahiri, former Chief Economic Advisor and Aziz’s professor at JNU, who facilitated his homecoming. When Lahiri caught up with Aziz in 2007 at the International Monetary Fund, where Aziz was division chief for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at the Fund, he repeated a question he had often asked Aziz: “Are you coming back home?” And this time, Aziz couldn’t refuse. It took almost a year for the Indian government to clear his appointment in January 2008 and he joined in April. “I am not new to bureaucracy,” Aziz winks, referring to the years he spent with the IMF, which took another three months to grant him leave. But it has been worth the wait, because, for one, he brings home a lot of wisdom and unknown facts about China, where he worked for the last four years. Aziz was one of the first to suggest that China was underestimating the contribution of the services sector to its gross domestic product. “The last two to three revisions have shown that services is a much bigger part of the GDP than what was believed so far,” he points out. But what about the frequent comparisons between India and China—is it fair to compare the two countries? “Few people separate the two, given their physical size and the population numbers. But one generally gets stuck in superficial comparisons,” says Aziz, sipping black coffee. “You have to look at how China approached its development plans, the role of the state versus the private sector in the two countries. These institutional differences are often forgotten.”Aziz has joined the finance ministry when the government is battling the scourge of inflation and price rise. “For me, as someone else said, it’s baptism by fire,” he says. Inflation in India, essentially, is driven by supply-side constraints. “It is still inputs—including food, iron, steel—that is contributing to it. The manufacturing side is still benign, which is a good thing,” he says. But much of it is because of the rise in global prices of commodities, Aziz points out. “Yes, we are an important player in the global economy, but not so important as to influence global prices and bring them down. We will continue to be at the receiving end of high global prices,” he says, amused at the current rhetoric surrounding the weekly inflation numbers. “It would have been great if the measures already taken brought inflation down instantaneously. But, there’s no magic. Its not just unwise, but silly, to expect this.” Camping at the Tamil Nadu Bhawan for the last month, Aziz hopes to bring Monali and two daughters to India in June. “My elder one, Indu is 14, and behaves like one. The younger one, Mehr, is 11 going on 30,” he says, wondering if they would get along fine in Delhi. “Their biggest incentive for coming to Delhi is what they have heard about Karim’s (the eatery) from their cousins.”His wife Monali works on an equally interesting country, Iraq. “She works on decentralisation in Iraq, something as controversial as where the Chinese yuan is headed.” But how difficult is the situation in India today? Definitely, it cannot be tougher than his first mission to Malawi, 13 days after joining the IMF. “It was interesting: three-fourths of the country was under a famine; the government had just changed; the exchange rate was depreciating about 2 per cent a day, and the only hotel in the capital city wanted advance payment as they did not have any cash,” he recalls.“I quickly realised this is a world very different from that of real business cycles or neo-Keynesian Phillips curves.” Aziz survived that. India will be easy meat.
