In a revelation that will take everyone completely by surprise whilst possibly annoying the Narendra Modi government but perhaps pleasing the Congress party, India’s former chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu has said that he advised former US President Barack Obama to remind the BJP government of India’s traditional and well-established commitment to democracy and secularism during his visit as chief guest at the Republic Day Parade in 2015.
In his speech at Siri Fort on the last day of his visit on January 27, 2015, this is what Obama, who was then the president of the US, said: “Around the world, we’ve seen intolerance and violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to be standing up for their faith, but, in fact, are betraying it. No society is immune from the darkest impulses of man. And too often religion has been used to tap into those darker impulses as opposed to the light of God … our two countries (have always) reaffirmed a basic truth, as we must again today — that every person has the right to practice their faith how they choose, or to practice no faith at all, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination … Your Article 25 says that all people are ‘equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion’. In both, our countries – in all countries – upholding this fundamental freedom is the responsibility of government, but it’s also the responsibility of every person.”
Obama’s comments made front-page headline news in India. Although it was quite clear they were pointed at the Modi government, Obama did not name the government or Modi. Equally, the Modi government did not comment on what Obama said.
At the time no one knew what had prompted his comments.
Now, in a 36-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Kaushik Basu, who served as Manmohan Singh’s Chief Economic Advisor, from 2009 till 2012, has revealed that on January 23, 2015, he was invited to brief President Obama, just days prior to his India visit. It was at that meeting that Kaushik Basu suggested that Obama should find an occasion whilst in India to “remind India’s leaders of this great heritage and urge them to preserve it”.
In an interview to discuss his forthcoming book, Policymaker’s Journal, a diary of his three years as chief economic advisor and subsequent four years as chief economist at the World Bank, Kaushik Basu reveals details of that January 2015 meeting in the White House with former President Obama.
Basu says four people had been invited to brief the US president, who came to the meeting with four or five of his advisors. Basu says at the meeting, Obama exuded “a genuineness and kindness that is rare among politicians”. He adds “there is an air of inexplicable goodness about him”.
Of his own contribution at that meeting, Basu writes: “I spoke for 7 minutes, mainly a short history of India-US economic relations, including how totally unpalatable and immoral USA’s behaviour was in the early 1970s when the US tried to stop the liberation of Bangladesh”. However, it was at the end of those 7 minutes, just before he finished speaking, that Kaushik Basu suggested to the president that he should raise India’s traditional commitment to democracy, secularism and tolerance.
He said: “Mr President, I want to take a moment on a matter that goes beyond the economy and not what you invited me here for, and I told him that one thing that India truly had reasons to be proud of was its democracy and secularism. There are few parallels in world history of a nation as poor and as newly independent as India, having achieved what India has on these dimensions. Yet there are genuine risks to these core values. So when in India, I went on to say, he should remind India’s leaders of this great heritage and urge them to preserve it.”
In his book, Basu says “Obama broke into general laughter and said something like that would surely make him popular”. Basu says he responded: “I was asking him to do this out of my love for India.”
In his book, Basu adds: “I felt he heard and understood me but deliberately allowed the remaining conversation to meander back to imminent geopolitical matters and the economy.”
Basu recounts that at the end of the meeting, one of Obama’s advisors “came up to me and asked if there were statements in the Indian Constitution or other Indian writings that stressed these points about democracy and inclusiveness. I gave a few general suggestions.”
At the end of his account, Basu writes: “Was it my brief intervention on this subject in the White House that did it? There is no way to be sure, short of asking Obama. But my hunch is it was.”
In the interview to The Wire, Basu also discusses in detail his three years as chief economic advisor as revealed in the diary he kept. He says: “The first week in my job I felt miserable”. However, he comforted himself with the belief that if Malinowski could spend months among the Trobriand islanders he could, surely, spend a few years with politicians in South Block.
During those three years, his diary reveals, he was able to see through both politicians and bureaucrats.
Initially, he was baffled by how politicians could speak on different topics no matter how complex. He soon discovered the secret: “The trick … is to speak freely and not hold back because of any silly principles like, when you say something, it must mean something. As long as the sentences are sufficiently convoluted for their content to be a blur of words others will find meaning in what you say.”
Basu’s diary also reveals he spotted the striking connection between politicians and corruption. “An act of corruption, far from being a source of embarrassment, to be kept secret, is in many circles a source of pride. It shows how powerful you are that you can get away by being egregiously corrupt. Hence, in such circles the more corrupt you are the more respect you command.”
Basu’s diary reveals he’s equally dismissive of bureaucrats. He writes: “I have learned that in the Indian bureaucracy … to any question you may be asked, you never say you don’t have an answer. If you don’t have an answer to the question asked, then give an answer to a question for which you do have an answer, never mind no one asked that question.”
Whilst bureaucrats like to present themselves as very busy people with an awful lot of work to do, Basu thinks about them differently. He writes they may “plod away 14 hours a day, 7 days a week” but “the upshot is they work to a point where efficiency and creativity suffer”.
During his three years as CEA, Basu got to observe and understand the customs and practices prevalent in South Block. He writes there’s “a malaise of permissionism”. No matter what you want to do and no matter how small it is you have to get permission. But for one thing, permission is never considered necessary i.e. walking into someone’s room. “In Indian officialdom, to enter someone’s room not only do you not knock, but it’s also actually considered impolite to knock.”
Finally, Basu’s diary also reveals his very high opinion of former prime minister Manmohan Singh, verging almost on hero worship. Here are some of his comments about the former PM: “I am convinced that in terms of honesty, basic decency and, in particular, lack of guile and intrigue, he has few peers in the world … I am convinced he stands head and shoulders above other politicians … in the firmament of Indian politics and bureaucracy, the person who stands out is the Prime Minister.”
The above is a paraphrased precis of Kaushik Basu’s interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire. Although recounted from memory it’s not inaccurate. However, there is a lot more in this interview than has been covered in this precis. Please see the full interview for a better appreciation and understanding of both of Kaushik Basu’s viewpoint as well as his forthcoming book, which is a diary of his three years as CEA.