WAITING FOR THE HAS-BEEN TO BECOME HAS GONE!
Monday, 23 February 2015 | CHANDAN MITRA
Poet Rabindranath Tagore once lamented: “In this world, alas, those that have everything in plenty are the ones always asking for more!” The plaintive peeve of a noted economist, Nobel Laureate, Bharat Ratna and Chancellor of a University among many other distinctions, seems to entirely justify Kaviguru Tagore’s perceptive observation.
Although after getting a thinly-veiled rebuff from the Government he now says he’s withdrawing from the race for another term, the angst of thwarted desire is all too clear. Arguably, he was a talented economist once upon a time. His work on economic inequalities in post-Colonial societies was widely acclaimed in its time. It is not really material to point out that he left the country of his birth, a scarcity-driven, poor “post-Colonial society” to live in the comfort of affluent Western universities to spin out scholarly monographs on poverty and inequality.
With advancing age, he probably found the winters in UK and the US rather harsh and decided, like migratory creatures such as many avian species, to fly down South in winters. However, he invariably returned to the salubrious climes of the West to escape the wrath of the Sun in the Indian summer. The largely ceremonial position awarded to him by the previous Government, allowed him free travel and comfortable stay in India whenever he chose to be here. While on his annual winter retreat, he merrily pursued his passions such as regurgitating outdated and failed neo-Marxist economic mumbo-jumbo.
He also never lost an opportunity to lecture India on what socio-economic policies it should follow. He soon became a darling of the media for his readiness to offer gratuitous advice and a byte-on-demand. His constituency, out-of-favour Left-liberals lapped up his antiquated economic prescriptions. Although a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist in the past, he metamorphosed into a propagandist for the Congress Party, particularly the family which holds that organisation in its vice-like grip.
In turn, he was periodically rewarded with honours and favours, although, ironically, the Bharat Ratna was awarded to him by Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA Government. This was despite the fact that he made no secret of his loathing for the BJP. So much so that in 2012 he made a grandiloquent declaration that he would not want to see Narendra Modi as India’s Prime Minister.
That a person, who was not even a voter in the country of his origin, had no business to express such a partisan view, did not strike him at all. But Indians being suckers for anyone flaunting foreign recognition, he developed a huge fan following which was ever ready to pounce on even mildest criticism of their false demi-God.
Long ago, the legendary Raj Kapoor described some Indian film-makers as “peddlers of India’s poverty”. That description perfectly fits the subject of this commentary. The larger problem with such people is they refuse to recognise that time has passed them by and their once-treasured dogmas are long past expiry date. They cling on to their jaded formulations, conjuring up visions of a rural India that probably fitted the story of Mother India and Do Bigha Zamin and today are only subject matter of history.
But for them poverty is romance; they are in love with misery, always ready to imagine the poor in light of their perceived wisdom. They retain abundant nostalgia for the welfarist state, a product of post-war necessity and Keynesian models of public spending-driven economic growth. They treat supply-side economics with contempt although that explains much of today’s global economic realities. They continue to worship fallen idols forgetting that Maurice Dobb, after all, is about as relevant as Marx in the 21st Century!
For all their prescriptions of simple living and high thinking, creature comforts are of paramount importance to them. They may fervently (and publicly) wish that Modi were not Prime Minister of India, but have no qualms in wishing their tenures are extended by the same “despised” BJP Government. Any self-respecting person, leave alone an academic of some distinction, would have bowed out of office gracefully when his tenure ended. But the thought of losing a winter nest and some freebies impels some people into channel hopping on TV, rolling out sob stories about being denied a second term. There are enough BJP-bashing intellectuals and journalists in this country to echo his crib and complain against a “vindictive and intolerant” Government.
Now in his eighties, shouldn’t the award-laden professor ask himself if it is not time to call it a day? It must be galling for him to be described as a ‘has-been’ but that is the harsh reality. Few tears, therefore, will be shed when the ‘has-been’ becomes ‘has gone’ (to the country in which he is a voter, having publicly voted for the Labour Party in the last election).
The Government has done well to commence a purge of Nalanda University. It is a sacred, timeless seat of Learning which must be revived. But that cannot be done by packing its higher echelons with subversive Marxist academics who believe ancient Indian civilisation contributed nothing worthwhile to society. To begin with, the has-been elements that are crowding the corridors of Nalanda must become ‘has gone’. Then new energy and genius derived from the soul of Bharat-varsh must be engaged to recreate this Temple of Learning.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/todays-newspaper/waiting-for-the-has-been-to-become-has-gone.html