The following is a review of Dr. Subramanian Swamy’s book titled “RESET: Regaining India’s Economic Legacy” (Rupa Publication, 2019)
Morgan Stanley’s Ruchir Sharma once stated: “India disappoints both optimists and pessimists”. The travesty and the conundrum of the semi-comatose Indian economy leave contemporary policymakers in want of levers that exist, are effective, and (most importantly) are at their disposal.
Having accurately predicted the current slowdown in the Indian economy, many eagerly awaited Dr Subramanian Swamy’s book “RESET”. The adroit and vocal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader promised to produce a primer in economics, which he admits is his first love among academic disciplines.
While Dr Swamy applauds PM Modi’s “unstudied familiarity with microeconomics”, he recommends a more comprehensive approach to address the “complex multivariate general equilibrium” macroeconomic issues facing India today.
As a revised rendition of his 1970 monograph titled “Swadeshi Plan”, he highlights in the Preface his ultimate objective of developing an indigenous economic plan which is not tardily borrowed from outside, but one that is appreciative of the Indian ethos and practicalities:
While he lists a series of short and medium-term measures for the revival of the economy in the final chapter of RESET, the preceding chapters serve as a foundation of how and why he arrived at these policy prescriptions. At the very core, his approach is based on the abstract idea:
For a country perennially marred with non-compliance and economic offences at various levels, a question has remained unanswered for all governments since independence – is it coercion or persuasion that is more effective to increase compliance in India? Dr Swamy’s response:
Through a series of examples, Dr Swamy demonstrates how the policymakers invariably and erroneously placed faith in the high-handed state and the central planning commissions. He believes that both under British-raj (pre-1947) and under the influence of the Soviet Union (post-1947) the individualistic and entrepreneurial Indian has been shackled and deprived of opportunities to realize his full potential. He asserts that even today the structure of the Indian polity is reminiscent of the Soviet model:
As an alternative, he enunciates what the role of the government should indeed be in the Indian context. Later in the appendix, he provides a detailed comparison across capitalism, communism, socialism, and Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay’s Integral Humanism. According to him:
Across chapters, Dr Swamy draws parallels between China, Europe, East Asia, United States, Independent India, India under British-raj, and India under the Princely States. He describes how agriculture, railways, and other industries evolved and how labour, capital, and other resources were mobilized over the last few centuries. Taking cognizance of these indigenous historical accounts he propounds:
In conclusion, while RESET is a fairly technical and data-heavy primer, it is a fast-paced and carefully compartmentalized economic journey of India, the next chapter of which is currently being penned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet. While Dr Swamy applauds PM Modi’s “unstudied familiarity with microeconomics”, he recommends a more comprehensive approach to address the “complex multivariate general equilibrium” macroeconomic issues facing India today.
Note:
1. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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