The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires”
— William Arthur Ward
Indian-American development economist Padma Desai inspired many lives. In her passing on April 29 at 92, we have lost one of the iconic thinkers of recent times. She was Director, Center for Transition Economies and the Gladys and Roland Harriman Professor of Comparative Economic Systems. Together with her eminent husband, Jagdish Bhagwati, she represented an intellectual tradition, which has done us proud. However, she was never overshadowed by him in her domain thinking, independence of views and characteristic sense of humour.
As a student, I was privileged to be taught by her at the Delhi School of Economics between 1960-62, and received her continuous guidance particularly in the application of econometric modelling on various aspects of macroeconomic theory. In fact, I was fortunate to be taught by Jagdish too, and this relationship continued when my son was equally privileged to be taught at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. As mentioned in my autobiography Portraits of Power: Half a Century of Being at Ringside, Padma had a deep understanding of development economics. She was patient, tolerant, understanding and affectionate. From that time, till the very end, I was fortunate to receive her endearing affection. Her passing away is a personal loss to me and to each member of my family who recalls her caring words and continuous encouragement.
In her long academic career, she received scholarships from Bombay University and a PhD in economics from Harvard University on a fellowship of the American Association of University Women. She then taught at Harvard, worked as a research associate at Columbia, visiting research economist at the Institute of International Studies at Berkeley, a visiting fellow of International Economic Studies at Stockholm, not to mention a senior associate member at St. Antony’s College, Oxford. As Professor of Comparative Economic Systems at Columbia beginning in 1992, she became the Director of the Center for Transition Economies.
Few understood the dynamics of the Russian economy as well as Padma. She was involved in two important committees related to Russia — the Russia Working Group in 2009, and later as a member of the Advisory Committee for the Council on Foreign Relations, where she helped prepare a report on Russia. She was the US Treasury Advisor to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation in the summer of 1995, even as she continued to be the president of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies.
Her legacy will be manifold. The multiple books and publications speak for themselves, I will, however, bring out four special aspects.
First, I would particularly like to mention her autobiography, Breaking Out: An Indian Woman’s American Journey. It is an extraordinary work combining her candour, courage and conviction. I was privileged to be a panellist at the book release function at the India International Centre. It was a moving experience as everyone in the audience realised, in awe, her courage in putting down, in such forthright detail, the travails of a middle-class woman from Surat, Gujarat, seeking to pursue her academic career in Bombay University. Her iconic academic success is embedded with the struggles of her personal life with a conviction to reach the top.
Second, is writing along with Jagdish, a critique of India’s economic planning system entitled India: Planning for Industrialization in 1970, recognising how protectionist policies were hindering economic growth. Her contributions to India’s economic reforms, coupled with transition economies brought out the inescapable need for economic reforms. In a subsequent piece, she highlighted the inefficient investment decisions kept in competitive firms and businesses which, as she said, allowed beneficiaries a “protection to enjoy monopoly power and earn supernormal profits with little incentives to explore export opportunities and foreign markets”.
Third, her extensive work at the Harvard Russian Research Centre on the first modern econometric analysis of the Soviet economy and writing Perestroika in Perspective: The Design and Dilemmas of Soviet Reform. She went beyond econometric analysis and analysed Gorbachev’s economic reforms, coming to the candid conclusion that “Gorbachev and his planners were prisoners of a mode of thinking that prevents them from comprehending the preconditions and functions of the capitalist market”. In a sense, she was the precursor of far-reaching economic reforms to take place later in the 80s, but more significantly in 1991.
Finally, few have believed in the power and emancipation of women as Padma. In the article, “A better world: India and the world are now more congenial to women and their success”, she lauded former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for raising three accomplished daughters, and also PM Narendra Modi who, according to her, has done more for women than from the time when “Gandhiji got them to march in swatantra rallies”. She recognised that we have come a long way on issues of women’s emancipation and that “young women in India today, therefore, can stand on the shoulders of pioneering women from their mothers’ days”.
In many ways, Padma was a visionary thinker significantly ahead of her time. She herself was a role model combining the multiple contradictions in her personal life to reach vantage positions in the world’s leading academic institutions. In this sense, she had broken the glass ceiling much before it had become an integral lexicon. Her influence and reach went far beyond academia. In the end, what you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.
The writer is President, Institute of Economic Growth
