The head of 'Niti Ayog', the new Avatar of the planning commission, resigned and going back to America where he lived most of the time . The full form of Niti ( National Institution for Transforming India !!!!) Ayog it self is interesting. Neeti also means 'policy'. The resignation of Aravind Panagarya from the Niti Ayog tells a lot about his leadership qualities and irrelevance of the organization. What 'transformation'!! And here the one million dollar question is what kind of 'transformation' is brought in India- a republic of fear and hunger ?
Though India has emerged as a 'free country'' from Colonialism seventy years ago, there is still a great charm and attraction towards anything from Europe or the US. There is also an implicit assumption that when someone has a degree from UK or US or academic position in one of the Universities there, they are 'superior' than the Desi academics who chose to be in India. For example, Pinaryai Vijan, Marxist Chief Minister of Kerala appointed a neo-liberal economist based in Harvard University. No one knows what 'brilliant' economic advice she gave to the CM of Kerala. There is hardly any evidence of any economic or policy brilliance of any sort in the governance of Kerala so far. The fact is the Kerala CM too was impressed by the 'brand' value due to the Harvard tag rather than as reader of her policy or economic papers. One wonders whether he read even one Paper of his economic adviser who lives in America. The assumption is that once you get a degree or o you have a job in the US or Europe, you are 'global ' expert. Having read and heard many of these worthies, one can say this perception is largely exaggerated and in many cases totally misplaced.
Many of these people got in to these institutions not because they are the most brilliant in the world. It is often through chances of getting a scholarship or an opportunity rather than due to any inherent genius of any sort.I know so many brilliant academics who chose to be in India rather than taking up a job in UK, US or Europe.
The case of Aravind Panagariya is an interesting case. His 'credibility' largely come from the Columbia University tag rather than any of the 'brilliant' work he did in Economics. Though I was not at impressed by the quality of his( and his Mentor'd) work comparing Kerala and Gujarat in their book and also some of his earlier papers, I wanted to eagerly listen to him and see his vision of policy shifts and the very dream of Making India etc. He was the key speaker at an Important Orissa Development Conclave where I too was a speaker. Due to his busy schedule he came by a special plane- and there were are eight hundred people to listen him. And what a disappointment he was !!!!! He did not speak one word about the state of Indian economy or policy context and or shared any vision about development. He hardly spoke about the very theme of development conclave. He spent most of his time explaining what is Niti Ayog and how it is different from Planning Commission( which most of the people knew anyway). Both as a speaker and as a policy leader, he was a huge disappointment and came as a typical over-rated guy who landed up in the job simply by praising Modi and Mod's Gujarat mode rather than any policy brilliance or policy imagination.
Niti Ayog is a typical symptom of the lack of political and policy imagination of the present government. It is a non-starter. No one knows its relevance, roles and responsibility. No one knows what kind of 'think-tank' it is. No one knows what is its 'contribution' in terms of ideas or original research. It is Montek Singh Alluwalia model of UPAII that destroyed the very potential of planning commission. And a complete mediocre policy leader like Aravind could not build a new institution from the killed old Institution nor imagine something out of the box to influence a set of new ideas and research for the so called 'Making India' project.
This organisational disaster of Niti Ayog is symptomatic about the high spin rhetoric of this government and the reality of the disaster of recycling of the disastrous policy framework of UPA II( eg Adhaar, Planning Commission, technocratic policy shift, cutting of subsidies, curtailing civic spaces etc) largely led by the likes of Montek and Chidembaram. ( that also effectively killed the prospects of Congress).
These Delhi centric technocratic leaders( in the UPA II cabinet) hardly with any connection with the reality on the ground or the plight of the people destroyed the very core of congress and democratic governance in India and really played in to the hands of the Sangh Parivar.
And they brought in a set of mediocre policy 'wonks' simply because they praised Modi sahib and these bunch of policy people hardly contributed to any policy framework of Niti Ayog. It is time to call a spade a spade. So far Niti Ayog is disaster of an organisation with zero innovative or research output. And the very resignation of Aravind Panagrariya now proves the fact he failed completely as the head of a new institution and it also proves how Niti Ayog is a complete disaster as an institution.
Moral of the story: it is easy to destroy an institution or a country- but it is immensely difficult to rebuild or recreate an institution and a country. It took sixty years to build the institutional architecture of a democratic Indian state and it took less than two years to kill many of the core institutions and now the Universities. And the kind of sycophants with a mandate to build or lead these institutions themselves don't have the capacity or imagination to do so. Aravind Panagariya will not make any great miracles in economics in Columbia as well. The 'foreign' tag is still 'charming' to many India.
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