For more than two years, I have regularly contributed to the public discourse in India through essays in the national dailies and other public outlets. My primary interest lies in the economic development of India and in the various reforms we need to prioritize to achieve such growth.
 
Politics of substance
One of the themes I have consistently covered in my articles is the "metropolis vacuum" in the Hindi heartland, which slows down growth in India, and that the region needs an urban revolution, with more significant investments in cluster development and providing greater autonomy to local governments. Surveying the priorities of 2019 Indian voters, we learn that Indian voters are also on the same page; they want jobs, healthcare, water, public amenities, agriculture to be the primary issues. Yet, there is a strand of politics in India that embraces parochialism when we need politics of substance that tackle India's two most significant problems today - imbalanced regional development and lack of unemployment for young people. Despite the need for politics of substance and the demand for it, during the 2019 elections, we found that the real Indian priorities were not prioritized. Instead, hot button issues remained salient in primetime media, which is detrimental to the health of our democracy, society, and our economy.

Narratives of growth
I discussed the importance of narratives in shaping public discourse and shaping long-term history itself and later wrote how we reached an exceptional age of human dignity (Hindi), whose sustenance and future are in our hands. Yet xenophobic narratives and extremism shall emerge if we do not address fundamental issues of lack of opportunities for the youth in our young country - if we do not bring investments and opportunities in India, we risk becoming a failed state and society stuck in extremism like many other countries in our neighborhood. To stop the rise of xenophobic narratives, we must also address how social media platforms like WhatsApp spread visceral information.

Public goods capitalism
For rapid economic growth, we need to address inequalities in social capital that make it difficult for Dalit businesses to succeed. At the same time, we must develop an economic model that focuses on trade and tolerance, profits and people, economic clusters, and public goods so that we have sustained and virtuous cycles of growth, as South India teaches us. Additionally, we need to start reimagining India at the level of regional economic clusters and undertake governance reforms that enable better coordination and planning in these multi-city, multi-state clusters.

During the pandemic, I discussed how most Indians are not able to raise emergency funds and that we need to use our advances in digitizing India to provide emergency and social support to those in need urgently. During the pandemic, migrant workers were nobody's constituent. Hence, they were being ignored, and there is a need to provide them with immediate financial help and develop a Ministry of Migrant Affairs. The COVID-19 crisis can be a moment of renaissance for the Hindi heartland as well if it invests in the classic model of cluster and human development. I discussed the state of the Indian economy in an IIMB podcast, calling for land reforms, more labor-friendly reforms, focus on human and skill development along with cluster development, and the need for immediate attention on the Hindi heartland. During the second wave, I wrote how  Twitter trends have been used misused in India to amplify hate and distract the public from issues of public interest.

In articles for Patrika, I discussed how the Hindi heartland can learn from the public goods capitalism of south India and that our policymakers must remember that economy grows through value creation which happens when we focus on human and urban cluster development, and especially youth development by creating jobs in social (health) services and auto and electronic manufacturing. I discussed how India's VIP culture hinders investments in public goods, as our politicians and policymakers use VIP services and not public ones. We need immediate investments in public goods, especially in healthcare, for long-term progress. During the second wave of the pandemic, I discussed how Indians need to remember their forgotten civic duty to ensure that politicians deliver on issues that matter, like healthcare.

Importance of solidarity
In an article for Forbes, we discussed the relevance of Gandhi in the modern populist world, how his emphasis on Swaraj (self-governance), tolerance, and the truth is need of the hour for long-term progress. Without overcoming our national obsession with caste, we can not emerge as a strong nation and we can learn from the case study of Tamil Nadu that used narratives of a unifying Tamil identity to blur caste and other distinctions, which has helped them successfully apply the model of public goods capitalism. Solving a crisis requires collaborative leadership, that brings everyone together. Recently, I wrote an article on how to manage a large scale public crisis, by utilizing the unique capabilities of the government, NGOs, and for-profit firms to develop an effective crisis management strategy.

It takes about 10-15 days to build an Oxygen PSA. Many of us gave a significant fraction of our savings to the PMCARES fund. Why was it not used to build the necessary COVID infrastructure in time. We had 1 year, and our government could not take out a month or two to focus on Oxygen plants? 

While we again try to generate lakhs of rupees to help the most in need, I am still angry why do we need to go around begging for money, when
1. A PMCARES fund was established for this very purpose, 
2. The government has enough money in its coffers to raise lakhs of crores to provide instant COVID relief.

But the government is surrounded by a group of supply side economists and rent seekers who say to them - do not spend too much, it will increase the deficit and hurt investor confidence. With this madness they have not only let lakhs of people die, but also destroyed the Indian brand and its potential, by pursuing policies meant not to help those in need, but to protect the wealth of those who are rich and powerful. 

I have said this before, and say it again- levy an emergency wealth tax NOW on the ultra rich - Ambanis, Adanis etc - and use that money to pay for building the urgent COVID infrastructure we need. We need the era of supply side economics (aka Gujarat model) to end. 

It is time for good old public goods capitalism, the one that has been successfully applied for decades in the south and in other parts of the world — an economic system where both free market clusters are developed to support entrepreneurs and businesses, and so are public goods for the broader population. This is the only sane model of development that can work. It has worked in the south, it is doing wonders in Bangladesh, Vietnam… it will do well in rest of India too.

In the ADR survey that we had discussed in detail last year, healthcare was the second biggest priority for people across India, across demographic groups. Voters indeed know their priorities right. Yet, this is the word cloud of issues that Republic TV, India’s most patriotic news channel discussed about during the election. Pakistan, Robert Vadra were some of the urgent topics. After that we heard a lot about Kashmir, Mandir and then CAA/NRC. I am sure Arnab Goswami must have owned the liberals many times during this period.

While we were distracted by all the hot button topics, Indian healthcare was not getting the attention it deserved. Today there are few hospital beds left in major Indian cities due to COVID-19, and our doctors, especially resident doctors and nurses are overworked and underpaid. Tax payers are running from hospital to hospital in Delhi to save the lives of their loved ones. Imagine if ours was a civil polity where the people‘s concerns were actually heard. Where a primary priority of our government was also health capacity. And where people were not dosed with talking points that politicians and their surrogates wanted you to talk about.

People love conspiracy theories, and so here is a real conspiracy theory for you: you are being mind controlled by those in power through the black mirrors (TV, smartphones) every single day.


They shape your agenda, when their agenda should be shaped by you.

The Indian stimulus package offers around 0.55% of the GDP (around Rs 1.1 lack crore) as immediate measures for the poor, in which 0.31% of the GDP is in-kind transfers, most of which were offered on 26th March 2020. May month measures did not offer substantial relief for the immediate needs of the poor.

The economic stimulus packages being offered in response to the COVID-19 crisis, are like a fruit basket with a motley of measures. Each measure is different, based on the intended beneficiary, the level of immediacy and the instrument of relief. This article identifies stimulus measures announced by the Indian government where the poor or their employers are direct beneficiaries, and which are intended to immediately provide them relief.


Direct in-kind measures: The largest stimulus measure by the Indian government was announced on 26th March 2020, a day after the beginning of the lockdown. It provided 800 million poor individuals with 5 kg of wheat/rice per month, and 1 kg of pulses per household per month, for three months. The total fiscal cost of this measure was estimated to be Rs 45000 crore (USD 6 billion). A follow up to this scheme was announced on 14th May 2020 when 80 million migrant workers - including those who did not have proper identification - were included in the scheme (for 2 months) at a stated fiscal cost of Rs 3500 crore (USD 467 million). In a related measure the government also announced on 26th March 2020 a provision of LPG cylinders for 3 months to 80 million households, at a fiscal cost of Rs 13000 crore (USD 1.73 billion).

These in-kind transfers worth Rs 61500 crore (USD 8.2 billion) are welcome measures that are providing necessary relief to hundreds of millions Indians. Based on the 26thMarch announcements, per capita, a poor person was promised grain transfers worth (cost to government) Rs 560 (USD 7.5), and a poor household was promised an LPG transfer worth Rs 1625 (USD 22). Of course, for a program of such a scale, there have also been leakages in the implementation of this relief, due to lack of accessibility or endemic corruption, an example of which has been reported in Jharkhand.

Direct cash measures: Along with the in-kind transfers, specific vulnerable groups have been provided direct cash and income transfers. These beneficiaries include 204 million women who receive Rs 1500 (USD 20 in three monthly instalments) through their Jan Dhan Bank accounts at a fiscal cost of Rs 30600 crore (USD 4.08 billion). 30 million poor widows, senior citizens and disabled receive a one-time payment of Rs 1000 (USD 13) at a fiscal cost of Rs 3000 crore (USD 400 million). 7.2 million workers with a monthly income of less than Rs 15000 (USD 200) in firms with fewer than 100 employees, get 24% of their monthly salary paid by the government for 3 months, at an expected fiscal cost of Rs 2800 crore (USD 373 million)1. This scheme was further extended for 3 more months at a stated fiscal cost of Rs 2800 crore (USD 373 million). The government has also made a wage increase of Rs 20 (USD 0.27) per day for MNREGA workers helping 136 million individuals at a fiscal cost of Rs 5600 crore (USD 747 million).

Although these transfers are worth Rs 39200 crore (USD 5.2 billion), the size of relief per capita is very small. For example the three Rs 500 per month instalments to 204 million women is inadequate to provide a sizeable relief. A paucity of cash has important negative ramifications on local demand, and as a consequence on the local economies. Hence, helping the poor through cash may be an important step in reviving local economies.

Other direct measures: Additionally the government has promised to create a fund for stressed MSMEs with a stated commitment of credit guarantee of Rs 4000 crore (USD 533 million), helping 200 thousand MSMEs. This is a welcome measure to help small businesses and their employees in distress.

Other measures: To help urban migrant workers the government, on 26th March 2020, directed state governments to utilise Rs 31000 crore (USD 4.1 billion) of the existing welfare fund for building and construction workers, to help 35 million workers enrolled in the fund. This fund helped state governments finance their relief measures. However a report by SWAN (Stranded Workers Action Network) showcased that even after 32 days of lockdown 97% of the migrants they surveyed had not received cash relief, 82% had not received food grains, and 68% did not have access to cooked meals. The government plans to provide an advance payment of Rs 2000 (USD 260 million) to 87 million farmers who are part of the PM-Kisan Yojana, which incurs no additional fiscal cost.

30 million small and marginal farmers are also expected to receive additional working capital through NABARD which will lead to cash infusion of RS 30000 crore (USD 4 billion). Similarly the government promises to provide working credit of up to Rs 10000 (USD 133) to 5 million street vendors leading to cash infusion of Rs 5000 crore (USD 666 million). A similar mega measure of credit infusion has been offered to 4.5 million MSMEs leading to cash infusion of Rs 200000 crore (USD 26.7 billion), helping them stay afloat saving jobs. Each of these measures, although incur no fiscal cost on the governments, are welcome steps to provide relief to small businesses, employees, micro entrepreneurs, and workers for survival.

Summary
The overall fiscal cost of the stimulus package for immediate relief to the poor is about Rs 110300 crore (USD 14.7 billion), that amounts to around 0.55% of the GDP in which 0.31% of the GDP is in-kind transfers. The overall stimulus is estimated by various agencies to have a fiscal cost of around 1% and it is encouraging to see that more than half of those fiscally costly measures are directed for the poor. Yet it is also worth noticing that most of these measures for the poor were already announced on 26th March 2020. In fact, in the much awaited wave of “self-reliant India” announcements in May, only three measures with a fiscal cost of Rs 10300 crore (USD 1.37 billion), were of direct relevance to the poor, although a variety of credit infusion measures were taken to help businesses that employ them. Hence, the second wave of announcements in the month of May have been a lost opportunity for providing more immediate relief to the poor. Given the scale of India’s poverty, severity of its lockdown, and the bullish growth prospects in the long term, there is space for more spending on the poor, which the government should focus on.

(This article appeared on IIMB’s faculty blog on 2nd June 2020.)

Resident doctors are fighting the war against the COVID-19 crisis from the front lines. There is no dearth of showering of wordy and flowery gratitude for all their hard work and efforts.
Young doctors in their early 30s, who chose the path of being a doctor over other lucrative careers, are earning between Rs 40000 to 50000 a month as residents, while doing frontline COVID-19 duty, exposing themselves to all the risks, with no hazard pay. If they wanted to leave after the crisis, to pursue a better career, they would be asked to pay a hefty bond in some states, such as West Bengal. On top of all this, there are reports from around India that resident doctors are being treated poorly (without basic equipment) with reports of their pay being cut or docked in some instances.
If such is the working conditions and pay incentives of top of the line resident doctors in their early 30s, what is the incentive left in this country for people to become a doctor? For a country that has abysmally low doctors per capita, such a poor incentive structure does not make the medical career any more lucrative, and the future of healthcare in India any more assuring.
Today if you want to pursue a well-paid career, a generic MBA seems to be a must. Opportunities for those who pursue expertise, in science and especially in medicine are meager. For someone in their 20s and 30s, being a YouTube “influencer” offers a more attractive career path than being a doctor. There is something broken about our economic system when being a highly educated scientist or a doctor is not a lucrative early career option, of the same kind as a bureaucrat, a consultant, or a Twitter troll!
Why are doctors, even those with decent medical experience in their 30s, treated as low paid “residents” when clearly they are qualified experts. Are they less capable, less intelligent, less hard-working, less rare, less essential professionals than the bureaucrats? The skills of Indian doctors are highly valued across the world. Then why can’t India value its own? Its true that bureaucrats in India are also paid only modest salaries, but they are afforded certain benefits which make their jobs lucrative to many including from the private sector. They are treated as babus, when resident doctors of their age are given little voice, neither within the profession nor outside. Why do young doctors not get comparable benefits?
Why can’t all the Indian doctors above a certain qualification, serving public healthcare, be enlisted in a national medical service (similar to the UPSC) and be afforded a decent seventh pay commission package that matches the depth of their expertise? This is also a recent request that the Federation of Resident Doctors' Association India (FORDA) has made to the Prime minister. Being a doctor is a social service, and they understand that such a service does come with some sacrifices. They are doing their job out of a sense of duty, not for the greed of money. Hence, doctors do not expect hedge fund manager salaries. But a good salary, a good package with a decent quality of life - what stops the government from offering them so?
A major reason why paying generous salaries to the doctors, especially those who are young, doesn't cross the mind of Indian policymakers is because human capital - health and education - seems to have been a historical low priority of the nation. India’s government spends around 1% of the GDP on health (lowest among G20 countries), when China spends around 3%, the USA over 14%, the UK around 7.5%, and Brazil around 4%.

When there exists such a small kitty for health, is it a wonder that a pay raise for doctors never reaches the decision desk? At the same time, lack of private competition in the health industry further worsens the situation because doctors have no labor mobility. They work effectively within a government monopoly. While we can debate how much privatization should there be in Indian healthcare; yet the fact that competitive salaries must be paid to the doctors is a no brainer.
The condition of Indian resident doctors is also a reflection on the state of human development in India. Human capital in India has been ignored, first in favor of top-down industrialization during the pre liberalization era, and then of pro-business privatization in the liberalization era. Where are the much-needed investments in public goods? Even the much-anticipated stimulus package speaks the language of supply-side economics, ignoring the obvious fact that the coronavirus pandemic is primarily a health crisis, and a priority for the government must be to invest more in public goods such as healthcare. The machines, the factories, the bridges, and other “temples” have been given a priority in the country for far too long over the doctors, the teachers, the nurses, and the scientists, i.e. the actual skilled class of the country that holds it together. As human capital has been ignored, no wonder India has uncharacteristically low levels of human development: infant mortality is high, literacy rates are low, drop out rates continue to be up, and life expectancy still remains 10 years behind China.
We should hope that at least after the pandemic, our investment in public health will go up. For sustainable growth, a simple one-dimensional focus on businesses and capital won't be fruitful, and it will require a holistic approach. The pandemic is an opportunity for this understanding - of the importance of public health - to dawn. In the latest stimulus package the government has given an indication of increasing health expenditure, but the amount or percentage GDP terms were not specified. A significantly greater fraction of India’s GDP must go into healthcare. And with such an increase, the health workers, including doctors should get the respect, recognition, privileges, and the pay that they deserve.

(This article appeared on IIMB’s faculty blog on 19th May 2020.)

Do we need to work to live well? If you look at the tiny sliver of the top 0.001 % - their families often do not do market-labor. They live off the rents they raise from their accumulated capital. A few of them may be self-made, but the larger mass of the wealthy are the inherited folks. They are the landlords. If we do not question the inherited entitlement of the rich - the Trumps for example, why do we question such a desire of the poor?

The coronavirus pandemic has taught us that some occupations are more essential than others. We need the farmers, the sanitation workers, the doctors and nurses, more that the landlords at this moment. Yet, the landlords and the rent seekers hold significantly more wealth that the essential workers who live vulnerable lives - pay check to pay check. There is something sick about such a system, where the classes that do not work preach the gospel of work to those who actually work. "The poor are lazy", they say, while they themselves live off rents.

Every now and then people have identified and stated this irony, and the response to this irony has varied. Marx advocated for communism - a proletariat revolution against the capitalist rent seekers with the goal to socialise the means of production. But he implicated the bourgeois with the rent seeking capitalists. That was a mistake, as this ultimately led to the failure his entire movement. The bourgeois i.e. the city dwelling educated middle class, are the lifeblood of the knowledge economy and the source of economic, technological and often social progress. It were the bourgeois around the world who were the initial groups most receptive to liberal economic ideas of freedom and equality. They were not the enemies of progress as Marx imagined them to be. He held the bourgeois, the city folks, the industrious, the entrepreneurs in low regard, which made him and his movement an anti-knowledge-worker, anti-entrepreneur, anti-individual exercise.

We have learnt from the past that the best response to the above irony is not communism. So then what is it? Over the last decade new ideas have emerged to tackle this problem of unfair inequality. The first idea is the idea that community-orientation is an essential pillar of social support. For example, Rajan suggests in his new book (The Third Pillar) that when market, state and community are in balance then society is on a path to progress. When the balance fails there is chaos like the one we see today. Today in his view, communities have weakened considerably especially in post-industrial societies. However, in countries like India community matters, and it matters probably too much. While a majority of Indians are unable to raise emergency funds during a crisis, among those who can raise such funds almost half of them get it from their family and friends. The problem is, poor people have poor communities too, and rich people have rich communities. Hence, while communities matter and their importance can not be undermined, yet they can help the vulnerable only in limited ways.

The second idea is the idea of universal basic income, which posits that everybody should get a monthly check from the government that is large enough for them to live just fine, whether or not they work. This idea seems to be a closer response to the question - does a person have a right to live well even if they refuse to labour? Basic income proponents says yes. Yet there remains a problem. This system creates dependency on the government. Basic income is not a right, it is only a handout. As long as the government is charitable the public will get that income. If the government and its ideas changes, the public will once again be deprived of such basic income. Basic income still does not address a fundamental problem. It is wealth, not income that leaves millions vulnerable and exposed to uncertainty. The rent seekers get a good deal, not because of their high incomes, but rather because they have wealth (inherited or not) that they can seek rent off.

Hence, a way forward - distinct from communism, community-orientation or basic income - is the path of universal basic wealth. We need to create the conditions such that nobody is compelled to work just because they have rent to pay. Such a work-so-you-can-pay-the-bills, is a form of wage slavery that we need to address today. We need to take cues from the early European settlers, who occupied unsettled lands and called it their personal property, becoming their own little sovereigns. They no longer bowed to a monarch, but as owners of substantial lands they became their own rulers. We need to universalise this idea of sovereignty, where all citizens of a country have sovereignty and ownership over some substantial property/wealth on which they can build their lives as they please.

The idea of basic wealth can rest on three social endowments that every adult can be gifted unconditionally with:

1. a basic house/apartment, gifted to them by society/state, unconditionally.
2. access to individual savings that were made on their behalf while they were growing up, collectively by society/state in a National Childhood Fund.
3. unconditional emergency funding, especially that arise for emergency and rare disease healthcare needs (see MediCorps).

The coronavirus pandemic offers us a chance to relook how we support each other. Basic wealth in the form of three endowments - a house, some savings, and emergency funding - can help in reducing vulnerability in the lives of people, and turn them into their own little sovereigns.

It is possible that some say these ideas are costly or difficult, but when implemented on a war footing building housing to shelter all is not a radical idea. Singapore has reached close to such a case of universal housing. This can be done. Similarly, unconditional basic income to children which can be accessed when they grow up, may be more effective, better targeted and affordable than universal basic income, cash transfers or subsidies. In the same way, unconditionally insured emergency healthcare funding is a low hanging fruit that can help bring millions of lives out of fear and insecurity. None of these ideas are radical, but together these solutions can provide a new deal - a package of basic wealth that can protect people, especially the poorest, and help us all lead better, fuller lives.

(This article appeared on IIMB’s faculty blog on 19th May 2020.)