Renaissance Man

Professor Syed Ali Mohammed Khusro Husaini died on Sunday. The various appointments he held spanned a remarkable range: He taught economics ...

Professor Syed Ali Mohammed Khusro Husaini died on Sunday. The various appointments he held spanned a remarkable range: He taught economics at Osmania and other universities and he conducted and supervised research at Delhi8217;s Institute of Economic Growth, which he also headed. He was vice chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University and India8217;s envoy to Germany; he was a Planning Commission member and later headed the Agha Khan Foundation8217;s office in India; he was chairman, Eleventh Finance Commission and was, for many, editor of the Financial Express.

He will be remembered chiefly for his work on different aspects of agriculture, such as land reforms; although he also wrote on banking. His work in monetary economics, which he did not keep up for long, in certain ways anticipated Milton Friedman8217;s, as Friedman himself said. He was not just a theoretical economist but a practical one. For example, the Finance Commission he headed sought to use fiscal controls to establish the federalism which politics had not only not achieved but worked against.

It is said of most economists that they can communicate only with other economists, but Khusro Sahab had a rare ability to make complex ideas comprehensible to ordinary people. This power underlay much of his writing for lay readers. It also explains his immense popularity as a teacher.

Some time ago, I told Khusro Sahab that a friend had suggested that India8217;s Muslims could well adopt a Gandhian kind of non-cooperation to counter discrimination at the hands of the present dispensation. His reaction was that the parallel should be drawn with great care. The rulers in Gandhi8217;s time were non-Indian, after all, and now they are Indian. More important, Muslims cannot bear the economic strain which is sure to follow. I give this example to show how the man thought quickly and in large, societal terms. I doubt that there are many people with this breadth of thought and vision.

I happen to know that Khusro Sahab was very quick-tempered, having once become the victim of a misunderstanding caused by an off-the-cuff remark. But it is a sign of the man8217;s discipline that his reactions, even when he was extremely angry, were measured and restrained.

Although he was close to what the ideal economist should be, and although he chafed at the bit when other commitments kept him from his work in his chosen field, Khusro Sahab told me once that his interest really lay in literature. Being an economist had not caused this interest to flag.

Khusro Sahab, in short, was an example of a vanishing breed. He was a product of the best that the first half of the 20th century offered, and in particular he was a fine product of the finest of India8217;s composite culture, with an abiding interest in classical music and able to refer, aptly and with equal facility, to the Quran, the Mahabharat and the Bible when needed. One can but marvel at such a man and seek to learn from him.