War of words over Rajiv Kumar's column on foreign influence in policymaking

While Bibek Debroy echoed his view in Twitter, Pronob Sen questioned Kumar's conclusion

economy news: A war of words over foreign influence on Indian policymaking broke out on Tuesday after NITI Aayog vice-chairman-designate Rajiv Kumar suggested in a newspaper column that Indian-American economists were fading away as part of the ongoing policy transformation in the government.

Kumar had referred to the exit of incumbent NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya and former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan, and wrote that “if Lutyens’ Delhi rumours are to be believed, more such resignations can come”. Rajiv Kumar also said that as a result of this transformation, the country might witness appointment of individuals with much better understanding of India’s ground realities.

While Bibek Debroy, Kumar’s future colleague in the NITI Aayog, took to Twitter to echo his view, former chief statistician and principal director in the erstwhile Planning Commission Pronab Sen questioned Kumar’s conclusion.

“The foreign influence wanes, So read the weather vanes. Filthy lucre of a foreign land/ Has sullied many a hand/ And fogged the brains,” Debroy tweeted.

The tweet got an avalanche of response and the sarcasm was evident. Washington-based Sadanand Dhume responded: “All this is very well/ But it’s hard to sell/ Cambridge as a native school/ Oxford as a gurukul/ How some manage, pray tell.”

Kumar did his D.Phil from Oxford, and Debroy was in Cambridge.

Panagariya, who will be returning to Columbia University in the US as professor, told a TV channel that he did not want to comment on the issue. He also refused to talk about his precedessor or successor.

Author Ravi Mantha wrote, “Rushed back from distant shores / to join the rushing tide./ Stepped into manure for an uncertain tenure./ But luckily kept our foreign sinecure.”

Sen, now country director for the International Growth Centre’s (IGC) India Central Programme, was more straightforward in his response. “I don’t think it is an issue of whether home-grown economists are better than those who have worked abroad. To me the real issue is what your axiomatic approach to economics is.”....

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New NITI Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar hints at more exits after Panagariya

According to a column by Kumar, foreign influence on Indian policy making is fading under Modi

Under Narendra Modi, foreign influence on Indian policy making is fading away, writes Rajiv Kumar, who has been selected to replace Arvind Panagariya as the new vice-chairman of the NITI Aayog. In a column published by Hindi daily Dainik Jagran, while referring to Panagariya's exit earlier this month and Raghuram Rajan's decision last year to return to academia after completing his three-year stint as the RBI governor, Kumar writes that if "rumours in Lutyens’ Delhi" are to be believed, more such resignations may occur.

According to Kumar's column, as the "Anglo-American" influence fades, India may see the appointment of homegrown experts who understand its ground realities better than their foreign counterparts and who will be willing to stay and work until the end of their terms.

(economy policy)

Kumar, who holds a DPhil in Economics from the Oxford University and a Ph.D. from the Lucknow University, also argues in his column that it has taken a long time for the Indian policy establishment to shed what he describes as its "Macaulayist mentality".

Kumar writes that in the past, experts emerging from domestic academic institutions have been turned down for high-ranking government positions in favour of their foreign counterparts. As a result, Kumar argues, Indian policies have been influenced by organisations like the IMF, the World Bank, and the foreign universities that these imported experts revere.

As reported earlier, Kumar, a homegrown economist who likes to keep a low profile, is currently a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and has also served as the director of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). CPR and ICRIER are two of the biggest think-tanks in the country....

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