Indian civil servants and economists are more left-wing than political parties, India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said on Saturday.
At the launch of the book The Nehru Development Model written by 16th Finance Commission Chairman Arvind Panagariya, Kant said, “I respect Dr. Panagariya the most because he is an economist who believes in free markets. He is a firm believer in free trade and he believes in free enterprise and there are few economists like him in India.
“I have long believed that it is not possible for India to grow at a high rate for long without free enterprise and many of the things I have pursued in my career were born out of his many studies,” Kant said.
He added, “I have worked in both state and central governments and every civil servant and economist I have met is more left-wing than political parties. In Kerala, I used to meet all the economists who came out of CDS (Center for Development Studies). They were more left-wing… Congress was more Left than the Left… it was unbelievable…”
“I believe that if India is to grow at a high rate, you really have to break a lot of things…,” he said.
Speaking about the legacy of India’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Kant said, “I would also like to say that Nehru’s legacy is undoubtedly complex, yet his vision laid the foundation for many of India’s achievements in education, science and technology… in my mind.” These investments in human capital yielded long-term benefits.Furthermore, Nehru’s commitment to secularism and pluralism influenced India’s constitutional framework and democratic discourse, but not economic policy. On the front, there’s a lot to talk about, and that legacy is highly debatable.
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