 Namaskar and Good Afternoon everyone, Honourable Vice Chancellor Sir, Register Sir, Contribute by Abdomenation Sir, Finance Officer Sir, Directors of different schools of Kishnagata Hondikore State of the University, Faculty Members and other family members of Kishnagata Hondikore State of the University. From today we are reviving our old tradition, which is very healthy to organize monthly academic talk among the family members of our University in order to provide a platform for accumulations and sharing the knowledge. And today Professor Jauri Burvasar will deliver a lecture on rethinking development. Many a times equations come to our mind are we at the right part of development and I think and I believe from today's lecture we will get a right part to introspect these questions. With this I request Jauri Burvasar to start his talk. Thank you. Thank you very much Honourable Vice Chancellor Sir, Register Sir, Finance Officer Sir, Depokalata and Contribute by Abdomenation and my colleagues. It is both a privilege and also a responsibility to start a program which is actually of academic nature. And I am rather privileged to be given this task of giving the first talk. And I will be speaking about development and sort of critically looking at development trying to answer certain questions because this is the topic that I know most. For last few decades and more than that I have been doing some exercises indirectly or directly related to the question of development and I had a rare occasion of dealing at different levels starting from grassroots to the government. And that is how I see the issues related to development and I would rather would like to reflect that how these questions can be answered and why we need to answer certain questions. What I will try to do in this talk I will be speaking about roughly 40-45 minutes maybe and then I will be more interested to take questions and discussions. What is important is to understand you know I put three specific questions and I will come back to these questions once again and once I finish the presentation. The first question is that why should we think about development? Is there any reason for it? And to frame it differently, is there any legitimate reasons to rethink about development? So that is one of the things that I would like to deal with and if we find that there is actually a reason for a thinking development then I will try to also look at the question that what should be those things that why we should how we should actually rethink about development that we will try to look at the contemporary things and then I will try to also show up in order to provoke certain questions that how a possible alternative can possibly be imagined. So these are the two central themes where I will try to restrict myself and then on and off I will also try to address related questions and themes. Let me you know give a very common kind of understanding which we normally call GDP per capita you know and then if we look at the GDP per capita then we will see that last centuries or so there is an enormous increase in GDP per capita across the different countries and if you look at the diagram then you will see that the western countries western Europe and starting from Africa even Africa although we know that these countries are more or less poor countries but there also you will find that there is a trend of upward GDP per capita and that is what is the common understanding is all about and we said that over the last few centuries we are actually growing economy is going people of life of people like I think better and better and so on and so forth so we are actually having a sense of development in this fashion that over the period our lives are being better quality of life being improved and so on and therefore this is the traditional or standard way of looking at the things and one particular thing which is a very hegemonic in nature is the idea of growth and then overall growth and also the GDP per capita. I would also like to put another picture of this what this first picture hides all about is this picture the share of that GDP that goes to profit and wage if we look at the graph for this then you will find that in the same period where we have tremendous growth in terms of GDP per capita and also in terms of GDP as a whole then you will find that in the same period there is a constant increase in the share of profit and there is also a constant decline in the share of wages so that is the picture normally we do not talk about we do not like to put into the public domain and because it is actually going to question the first picture itself that what kind of growth it is all about where not everybody is being better off equally not everybody is making the same kind of share so that picture we normally do not talk about of let we are talking about those inequalities and all starting with Oxfam report in a private domain and academically after the PKT has written the two books about the economic inequality so this is what probably sets the tone of this talk that what is presented before you in terms of economic development high as many things which are not being presented before you so that is the way to look at the thing and that is why we should probably rethink about development what is presented before us in the form of development needs a lot of introspection and questioning and then probably we should actually look back and rethink about development so that is the broadly kind of first argument that I would like to put forth I will come back to this share declining share of wages and then increasing share of profit in order to explain the kind of situation that we have today why we are not having the demand coming up in the economy even though there is a there is a resumption of economic activities post pandemic situation because precisely why most of the people do not actually have income to spend so that's where the income gets concentrated only on a few hands so that's the reason that is why the demand is not coming up and it is not being matched up with the economic growth so that I will come to later now I will put three four you know broad ideas to start with now it is very interesting that development is what we call essentially contested idea now what is this essentially contested idea that everybody has a common sense of the term and everybody has their own kind of idea regarding development if you ask people go on asking people and that is what we did they are asking people about their kind of idea of development and everybody has their own version of development alright so that is why they have their own idea it is essentially contested idea it is one of those ideas where people have their own kind of imagination for instead democracy if you go on asking different people what do you mean by democracy they will have their own version to tell similarly if you go on asking people about development the people have their own version to tell about what constitutes development and what constitutes better life and so on and so forth and there are enormous differences if you ask suppose people living in uphill areas which we normally call tribal people they will not probably say the things which they mean by development that will be you know commonly available in a place so therefore in terms of geography in terms of communities, in terms of countries you get actually a sense that people have their own version of idea of development and that is the first point we need to understand so that is what we call essentially contested the idea it is always contested now very interestingly even if people had their own versions of their development idea somehow at some point of time the one particular idea of development gets standardized so that is the one thing that we need to understand how come given this cruelty of idea of development one idea gets standardized and it dominates the discourse of development so that's the second point we need to understand and that is what is one of my theme or rather central theme of talking about and if we actually fix the standard that this is the standard idea clearly it creates a converse what is not standard is actually converse and that is how we have this two idea of development and underdevelopment coming up and if we see that for instance suppose if we think that ok the investment and industrialization is actually linked to the idea of development then lack of industrialization and lack of infrastructure lack of investment will be typifying the lack of development therefore once we set a standard immediately it produces interestingly a converse as an absence of that particular standardization and when that happens and then we need to understand that how that stereotyping is actually accomplished in terms of theory, in terms of model in terms of path, in terms of policy so that is very important to understand that even if people had their own kind of understanding depending on their development what constitutes their development yet they become victim of a dominant idea of development and they have to surrender their understanding of development they have to confirm what is being given as a standard and anything which is missing in that standard will be constituting the lack of development and they will be projected as underdeveloped kind of thing and then we will try to make them development so that is what is the dominant discourse is all about we have to actually make people development rather than considering their idea of development allowing people to develop themselves there will be a standard idea and then we will consider that these people are actually underdeveloped because they are not confirming the standard we are setting and then it is our duty actually to make them develop so that is the normal development economics talks about and that is what is the agenda of that dominant discourse therefore it is important to understand and how given the probability of idea of development one idea gets standardized it gets actually stereotyped and then it is becoming an exosinous development which is being thrust upon people and which is being thrust upon countries which is being thrust upon different societies so that answer probably lies in history so I will not be able to explain everything that is there nor do I know everything which is available so I will take a middle part of this what I know and how I want to present it I find six things very important in answering this question one that it is important to understand the difference between other animal and human human is the only animal which can produce things for themselves no animal can produce things for themselves they will be taking whatever it is available human is the only animal which can produce so human society the production becomes distinguishing factor from other animal being so that is the first point we need to understand so activity wise this activity of production is unique and elementarily fundamental in human society that distinguishes human being from animal so that is the first point we need to understand second if we put a centrality of production in human society then immediately it becomes very important who produces what immediately we have who produces what and that is how society is organized and then immediately we will that is the idea actually this is the first chapter of wealth of nation division of labor and that is why probably announced me talk about that this is one of the central feature of human society that human society essentially a divided society and it is divided on the basis of fundamental activity which is production and the question of that division actually relates to who produces what so that is how society is organized very simple society everybody are engaged in everything as society progresses and it becomes complex then no individual can produce everything he has to specialize that is how this division get tightened and that is how it is it is got you know it gets more solidified it gets more freeze and that is how it becomes very complex kind of society to understand and it is also important to understand that once we get you know the complex kind of division it is increasingly becoming complex to answer the who gets what because you need all the things you are not producing everything you are getting solidified in one or two activities so you need but you need all the activities so therefore the question immediately becomes very evident that once I just stick myself to one kind of activities whereas I need all the kinds of products available produced by other things then my kind of share my kind of stake how it will be defined over other production which I am not a part of so that is the second question which is very important that what I am engaged with alright that is the division of labor and then second part is that how do I claim a stake of the commodities which I need for myself which are not being produced by me but by somebody else so how do you define that stake so who gets what who is going to decide on that so human society gets entrapped in two questions that who produces what and who gets what these are the central questions and if you look at the history then these are the central questions in the history where we get the civilizational development deciding that who is going to do what and who is going to get what there are three important ideas involved in it in the very initial stage we get two kinds of ideas deciding these two questions one was the divine you know provincial kind of thing that it is king or you know the king is also representative of God so therefore it is God like caste system or it is a representative of God like king by command they are going to decide who is going to do what and who is going to get what so for a long time in history these questions were revolved around this that who is going to decide so king or God provincial divinity kind of thing decided that who is going to do what and who is going to get what other thing which was dominant in history was about social norms so we get all kinds of social norms which decided that like gender is one question that who is going you know how women will be engaged in these productive activities and what are their entitlements over it so these are the questions caste, gender and all these things are social norms which actually define the kind of things that are going to be there in the society so this is for a long period of time these are the things you know these questions, fundamental questions of human society organization were revolved around the social norms and kings and commands so the progress was rather very slow in 19th century these were replaced by something called market market existed before it's not that market came into existence only after 18th century or 19th century you get market in the medieval period and even before that it existed this is important to understand it existed as a place of exchange there was a market and you can buy things sell things and all these things market has never been considered as an institution of social organization prior to 19th century in 19th century onwards or 18th century to be precise the market was considered as something which is going to give you this answer that who is going to do what and who is going to get what so that is a remarkable shift in terms of how society is organized and becoming long way from command and norms to market as an institution so that is the difference when we talk about market today and we talk about market in the medieval period market in the medieval period not an institution of social organization market today is a social institution organized in the human society so I think that's a very fundamental difference and you need to see I do not have time to spend on this thing but the main point is this you have to make a distinction between market today and market before and when we talk about market today and that is why we call this is actually a more of a market society it is a market dictating how people are going to engage in productive activities and by doing that how they are going to get other kind of activities how they claim over other kind of activities even if they are engaged in their production so therefore this market society is a very new thing coming in 18-19 centuries and this changed this thing and that actually we will try to examine that coming of this market society how it actually helped in standardizing a particular idea of development now I will just briefly talk about a very important transition that happened in human history and that is the transition from feudalism to capitalism which market society feudal society, pre-market society and then feudalism which is a market society and that transition you need to understand I do not have time and also probably I do not command understanding of these two themes as well to tell you about more but just to give a sense what I am trying to argue is that it started from the slave society in 18-century lot of things happened individual liberty, private property and then invisible hand kind of thing so why market was not coming because of sudden in ideas if you look at the history of economics then you will find that individual rationality are defined in terms of self-interest alright so that is a very problematic proposition because if you define rationality in terms of self-interest then you try to maximize self-interest where most of the times your self-interest is in conflict of other self-interest then if you allow that to happen there will be a chaos in the society so that was the common understanding and that resulted in providing a space for exogenous kind of ordering of the society that legitimized order of king that legitimized order of social norm because you cannot allow individuals to pursue their goals in terms of maximizing their utility, happiness or whatever and then therefore because they are always in conflict with each other so therefore if we allow that to happen there will be a social chaos so that is why if you want to have a social order it always legitimized an exogenous factor outside factor like king like social norm so that this does not become a problem and you put this of society in order now if you want to break away from that then you need to resolve this crisis that even if you are self-centered and self-maximizing then also it is possible to have a social order if you can prove that then only you can get away with king get away with social norm and all these things and that is precisely what is done by Adam Smith with the idea of invisible hand the idea of invisible hand Adam Smith gave was that there is something within the system which prevents this conflict and which he called invisible hand and that is the idea that if you allow people to pursue their own self-interest that is not going to create social disorder once that was established and once that was established it paved way for civil liberty movements politically institutionally private property and the economically market as an institution and that replaced the whole order that was there before and put up a system which is a new order so that is the idea and then we get a modern market society now what happened go back to the first graph that we have shown that how that changed the whole picture the moment we produce if we engage with specialized production specialized kind of thing producing for the market and that is very important market society produces for the market not for self you cannot consume everything that you produce you actually put up these things for market and get exchange and you get money and money is an entitlement claim for other commodities not being produced by you so that is the system in place and once that happened you see the enormous rise in both GDP and GDP per capita industrial everybody knows that how industrial production took place and then we have phases of that of course we have some gaps in between you see that for a very very long time at the thousand to eighteen hundred twenty this is the incident stage of industrial revolution you do not get to see any rise of them so more or less society remains stable the commodity remains stable the part of it remains stable and then that what happened the market society came into being you get a lot of production coming up production for market and that led to starting with this and this is the 1870 1870 is the full blown industrial revolution and then you get the enormous increase rise in this and then the world war happened as an intense fight there was a collapse and then from 50 to 74 again there was a rise and this is the period and then 74 onwards there was a crisis neoliberalism came so that is the trajectory you can see and you can relate what is happening with the history so that is why I said that probably the answer to this kind of fundamental questions one has to go back to the history for lessons and when we can see the things for ourselves now unique feature of this market society is this when market becomes central and all pervasive then you need to define your rationality and exchange afresh newly you have to define now not only it is important to have maximization of individual interest but it is also including profits and all so therefore that new kind of rationality will come in and production of production for market will require the will put the whole idea of growth at the central because when you get more production it only means growth so growth technically means more production so once you put this idea that production is central to human history and progress and you need actually more production and more kind of things then essentially what you are talking indirectly that you need growth so that is the one first thing that moment it become market society growth become here and component of that society so more growth is actually more progress so that is the first standardization happened now if you want to have more production obviously you cannot have it manually so industry become central and infrastructure become central in fact I believe and I somewhere argue that if you look at the history of industrial revolution then you get two phases one phase was about the industrial production that is the 1800 around 1815 to 1854 and that is the period where we concentrated getting more production you get scientific investment coming up different machines coming up replacing the manual production to machine production and you get more production it created a different kind of problem that where you put sell these products so first phase was concerned about the more production that is the first phase of industrialization second phase of industrialization which is 1850 onwards was about the creating the the infrastructure like railways like you know the transportation because you need to transport these things to other markets so that it does not become idle so you have to free this extra production and that is why industrial revolution got two failures one is the industrial revolution in the first phase getting the production done and the second phase distributing the production which laid two kind of colonialism in that phase so that is why you see a shift in the Indian history of nationalism also 1857 onwards actually it was no longer a East India company it was actually England's interest so therefore this change in the structure resulted in the political change as well so that is a different kind of story but this is important to understand so what is the idea once we put up a system of market production and market society growth become integral once growth become integral then you are putting emphasis on actually industry and infrastructure so that gets standardized you see these things coming up together and emerging as most important thing desirable thing in the society now next is investment that is very important to understand that if you want to have more production then you need to have more inputs in it no obviously you cannot have land land is fixed you cannot have labour labour is also fixed so that is very central in producing things and that is why investment become central and it actually created a notion of surplus this you know and then the standard macroeconomics theory those who are from economics will find that you have always an identity between saving and investment why? because you cannot allow idle saving if you break this identity then it will not lead to any investment in accumulating and accumulating so therefore it is not getting invested so the standard economic theory will say that you cannot have that kind of thing whatever you save need to be invested so that more production takes place more accumulation takes place and that is the standardization that happened and that is what is actually the idea so where from this gets standardized this is the overpowering emphasis on market production, market society production growth it actually creates the standard model of economic development producing a converse anything which is lacking will be converse so that is how it gets standardized it is not done purposefully it is not done deliberately and not resisting but in the process it gets standardized so that is very important to understand and this is the period in the 1950s you get the different disciplines coming up which is called development economics what is development economics? it was not there before before 1950 you do not get this term development economics 1950 to 1970 there was a proliferation of development economics trying to standardize this idea for all the societies and that is precisely the problem what is the problem because of certain things because of historical reasons following this path the western countries actually solved all the problems there was very minimal unemployment there was very minimal growth poverty and all those things they said that see that we have followed this path and this is the result and you have all the problems so unless you follow this model you cannot solve your problem therefore what we have we have different models that how it is to be done legitimizing you have got different theories and based on that you get also policies so these are trust upon the other countries which are not following this path but most importantly you forget that the role of colonialism during that period that it allows people to move out of those countries that is why it gave the unemployment way down for quite the two decades or so but if you look at today then you will see that those countries the model countries european countries are having these problems which were earlier used to be the other countries unemployment rate the inequality environment like climate change and all those countries which were saying that you have more unemployment than us and we have solved the problem by following this market rate growth and all these things so therefore this is a model you have to follow it and this is the theory and these are the policies by which you can actually solve your problem are now facing the problem of their own which are very high compared to our countries inequality is much more than us environment problem is much more than us so therefore if you look at this then the question definitely that is the second argument for me is that why do you need retweeting development because there is a reversal happening we should actually question that whether you serve steel as a model for us the things that you want promised us are now there so therefore can these countries serve as a model can their theories actually be applicable can their theories answer our questions and all these things so that is the question and that is why probably we need to rethink what has happened in between which has actually changed the phase of development discourse over the last 30 or 40 years just to give you a sense alright look at the global unemployment rate looking at the numbers you will find that this is the south asia 3.8 percent alright and all other countries following market-led growth model are having more than us so in 70s, 60s those countries were telling that you have more unemployment rate than us so follow us so we follow and they become more unemployed than us so you know that is the thing that has happened over the last 40-30 years so legitimately one can ask whether that kind of theory or that kind of model can actually serve for our purpose so that is the first thing second thing the enormous inequality which I showed in the second graph where the share of profit actually increased and share of wage has declined and most of us belong to that category we are not corporals, we are not capitalists so we do not get to see that our incomes rising at the same proportion with those people so our incomes are actually declining so we are getting more impoverished so that is the thing happening there 1 percent people owning the 50 percent of the total output that is the claim so that is happening and environment is already there now the point is why even if that is there we continue that model, that theory and that is there so how? how they continue to hegemonize this theory upon us we have to argue that there is a systematic hegemony there is a systematic hegemony by which we do not question their model, we do not question their theory and we continue to follow even if suppose they fail on themselves they are following the same model for themselves so that is the question and how that is done so that is the by creating certain fallacies what are the fallacies? the first fallacy is that the common textbook understanding of development tries to carry forward the certain fallacies which are completely historical and factually wrong what are these things? 4 things in textbook of development economics first of all it will project that process of capital accumulation or investment or development is a very very peaceful process you invest and then you get profit in the history it has never happened factually that has never happened that process of accumulation is always accompanied by a process of huge disposition always it started with enclosure movement in history it still continues so development the projection of development as a peaceful name process is actually wrong it is neither proven in history nor in the contemporary times the development always has a significant tendency of disposition and that is one one needs to be understood second fallacy is that as if capital goes only through investment no, capital can go by other means like enforcement branding this always happen so it is not only a very benign kind of investment that only allows capital to grow it has never happened not at the present time it is not going to happen in the future so it is not historical second most dangerous thing is that capital is a self-contained process this development is a self-contained process suppose you cannot develop by yourself so that is important to understand it has never been a self-contained process and most importantly it is an embedded process it is not an autonomous process and that is the problem because if you want to distribute development in different settings you have to get development because that setting that institution that society is not ready to accept that so therefore thinking that development is detached from those institutions detached from social conversion it is not embedded it is autonomous something and it is actually self-contained is grossly grossly restricting and wrong and that is probably we need to understand and that is probably we need to question I would suggest that there is always a dialectical relation between development and under development it was developed during the period of colonialism and imperialism in history and at present phase of this development under development hegemony has been done by the process of globalization so that is my kind of argument and that is my kind of understanding I will explain why in the colonialism you get two sets of people one are colonizers and other are colonized similarly today we have two sets of people one is globalizers and another one is globalized think about it have you been able to globalize and influence culturally economically other societies no you are not being able to do that you are actually more globalized than globalizer so therefore this right between you know development and under development which actually facilitated by this idea of colonialism and imperialism is continued with the idea of globalization it is re-friendly as this difference as in the kinds of globalization and that is why I would like to put certain maps this is a map of the colonies and colonizers in 1914 during the first world war you look at the colonies and colonizers alright what are the colonies and colonizers you impose the same map on the development method you find that those colonizers are developed countries and those colonies are actually the underdeveloped countries you re-impose this map on the human development index map you will find the same maps coming up that those countries which are colonizers end level up are also enjoying the human development those countries which are colonizers end the you know the less developed so called less developed as identified by World Bank and IMF are also the countries with the less amount of human development index so how do you say that there is no connection and these are autonomous events in the history it has never been like that and there is a whole lot of literature on that so therefore I would like to suggest that it is wrong to understand development is something which is autonomous self-contained system it is always it is always to be seen in terms of other countries and other institutions and that is how it is to be autonomous I would like to end by you know the suggesting some alternative first of all I think this A A is your first one A, B, C, D 4 things I would like to suggest first one we need to actually recognize the process of capital accumulation along with this position first let us recognize this systemic hegemony carried forward by the idea that this capital expansion growth and all these things are very naive and peaceful process we need to recognize that it has not been like that it is not today and it is not going to be in the future very unlikely that it is going to be in the future so therefore let us recognize this process of development has a tendency of this position and that is what we need to recognize first second point is that if you allow that to happen then obviously you need to talk about certain protection in terms of right for all those people who are having the chance of getting dispossessed if you want to protect them and if you recognize that there is a potential danger for the dispossession then what is an essential duty then you need to protect those sections and that is huge section of population so you need to talk about their rights you need to talk about their condition that is why rather than putting idea of development on them we should also ask them that what is their idea of development, how they want to have development and that is how we need to take on on board them and then think about certain set of protections and rights there is a great deal of difference think about labor neoclassical economics will say that labor is a factor of production, input of production and also say that anything given to labor is a cost that is my point so if you think that they are actually factor of production anything given to them will constitute cost neoclassical rationality will demand that you minimize the cost minimize the cost what will the consequence that you will not give anything to labor because you are considering them as a factor of production so therefore moment I go by this idea neoclassical idea of factor of production clearly there is a tendency of not giving anything to them because it is going to add to cost so you will try to rationalize your action by minimizing the cost labor ending up in more precarious condition than ever before so that is the idea change it to right based kind of thing consider labor are not only factors of production they are also citizens of the country so they have the right of health they have the right of education they have the right of income and so on so forth and moment we consider that these are not benign or the uninvited kind of factors of production these are human beings with citizens right then perspective will change to end up with the citizens that they actually should have so it is not minimizing the cost by giving them certain rights it is actually maximizing the rights for them so therefore there is a need to change this perspective from neoclassical framework which is a dominant strategy which I already have explained to a perspective which is more human people centric more right based more citizenry centric then probably we can but that will require the first condition that you should recognize that there is a possibility of getting this process then you talk about rights for collection and all these things so that is there so if we like to do that you need to think about in terms of a new kind of welfare state who is going to grant right state is going to grant right so what kind of state welfare state you cannot have the original kind of welfare state now the problem today is that there is a projection that any state which is doing lot of welfare schemes of welfare state no that is not the proper idea of welfare state what is welfare state the welfare state the essential duty of welfare state is to actually address the income inequality those who are from political science will understand article 38 and 39 prevents in India the income inequality of course it is a directive principle of the state but article 38 and 39 is specifically talks about that you cannot allow income inequality in the country it is the responsibility of the state to actually partil the kind of income inequality within the country it should take all the steps for covering that kind of income inequality so therefore this is very important to understand so you have to talk about those things today it is even more important today to talk about the directive principle article number 38 and 39 so there is a space we need only the political mobilization and political mobilization now lastly probably we should talk about the new dynamics of redistribution what is the new dynamics of redistribution and inequality if you look at the inequality diagram I have shown then you will find that there is an enormous transfer already happened you know from the lowest bottom to the top bottom so these pores are cannot be squeezed further because they are in the subsistence level it is not possible to get anything out of them so if you want to continue that inequality and redistribution then you have to target the middle class and you will find that middle class are today is the target we are the people who are getting suffers so therefore discourse only restricting only on those subaltern marginalized section is not going to get us anything out it is actually need to try to talk to people like us you know understanding what is happening around us and that is the new dynamics when the bottom part is exhausting the squeezing part now the target is actually in between so there will be increasing pressure on middle class and that has already happened for instance suppose the labour courts if you look at the labour courts the way the labour courts are being structured the way the rights are being started the 8th play commission will not be there anymore so therefore it is now that is the middle class from where this transfer income will happen to the top so therefore you have to be very very so you need to understand the new dynamics of inequality and redistribution and that is how probably we need to rethink about development processes and so on now I will come to the first questions is there any legitimate reasons to rethink about development I suggest that yes there is a great deal of legitimate reasons for rethinking about development and how should we rethink it is actually rethinking will require certain things recognizing the possibility of dispossession protecting the rights of those who dispossess understanding the new kind of dynamics for redistribution and inequality and the most importantly the thinking about the new kind of welfare state which is going to do this so that is the answer and with this I am thank you very much sir for your enlightening and insightful lecture it will it will definitely motivate us to study the different perspectives of development in new manner now I definitely many questions in my mind also I think you have also questions so now the floor is open for discussions so please participate so let me ask the first questions we know development is a continuous process and if we set the Indian scenario definitely there is development but presently the wealth or the fruits of development are mainly concentrating in few hands but in the future there will be development I think I have already answered through my presentation that this is not but only thing is that you are getting the same results across the societies because you are being forced to follow the same set of theories and policies you will get hardly any country pursuing different economic agenda and economic policies today in some countries if you look at then you will find that same set of policies same set of theories are there we talk same set of theories we pursue same set of policies and no wonder that you are getting the same outcome or result so therefore that is what is to be questioned that whether this is a good idea that irrespective of your society social condition institutions you simply follow a single standard set of development theory, model and policy and trying to solve your problem which has nothing to do with this kind of you know it is nowhere linked to the idea of a proper society and that is the problem and that is why I suggested that probably it is high time that we should rethink about our own development agenda what should be our own agenda and how this is to be pursued not dictated by anybody else but by ourselves and that can happen only when you exercise a political rights in terms of citizenry so that is agency role of individuals comes in and they take part actively in deciding the fate of themselves so that is the kind of an answer that I would like to give Thank you for all the comment what I see is one the accommodation in the end of the decade is very important but I would also like to know your opinion on the urban versus rural that I mean if you see in case of India and in case of Assam the development is more consecutive in the urban of India you will see the writings of I mean all of you just the writings of other people in villages more active in the public sector we see that there is a kind of more rural disinvestment in rural areas which is a massive dispossession so what is your take on that I mean to draw out the world of the state I mean to draw out the state from the rest of the rural economy or by any of these rural urban areas and for my feeling understanding I am going to work on dispossession in my HD pieces so what I have seen is there is also a kind of voluntary dispossession voluntary dispossession in the sense that there is a growing disinterest in the agriculture around the region in Assam also is the same context in other states of India there is a growing disinterest now how is what is the role of the state there I mean how do you perceive the issue of voluntary dispossession and again the rural urban that is also really important ok very interesting questions it will take a little bit of time to explain or it is time to explain the first the rural urban differences the urban is actually part of standardization part of standardization for quite some time during the 50s and 60s that was not there at least in India because we we tried to break away from that standardization so there were different policies for that but then rather we tried to do what we had a policy for industrial dispersal we thought that probably we should actually have industries in the remote areas that is why we got industries in Borobangga or Silghat and all those these are not urban areas understanding was that if we put up industry in villages then it will actually develop those villages and the related villages and that will be more equity alright that will be more equity and then regional disparity will be reduced so target was to put up industries in villages put up industries in areas which are not being development and that is the discourse in India in 60s and 70s which we call regional disparity discourse and simultaneously we thought of also improving the rural quality of life so that people do not come and flock around urban areas so we thought of a lot of programs for rural areas as well including the green revolution increasing the productivity giving income in agricultural prices commission for giving good income to the farmers and all that continued in 60s and 70s so these are the two point strategies on one hand how do you bridge this gap between rural and urban that you try to improve the urban quality of life so that they do not migrate to urban area that is one second you also put up industries in villages and rural areas so that that development which is already concentrated in urban areas get diffused to rural areas as well and thereby you bridge the gap between these two so two strategies then in the modern contemporary phase you actually replace this whole idea of industrial dispersal to urban renewal this whole urban renewal means that you concentrate only on few urban areas like 100 smart cities or 500 smart cities so you actually shift this focus from equity to efficiency the idea was that if you have limited resources you cannot end up spending everywhere where it is not a good result you will try to put up this money where results are high so therefore it is an efficiency so therefore when that kind of neoclassical profit maximizing principle comes into place as a neoliberal policy then we forget about this equity forget about all those things and try to select the most important areas for investment like 100 smart cities and so on so forth and we come up with a program called urban renewal my PhD relates to that so I can tell you that process of urbanization in most of the Indian towns and cities are different from process of urbanization of the towns and cities in the European countries ours is not a process of economic urbanization what is the urbanization the space capital relation there is a space and there is a capital capital comes to particular space location puts up the industry and so on so forth and then you have the industrial population coming up so you get more urban features than agriculture ours is not that ours is not economic towns ours is not economic you know the urban areas it is administrative towns and urban areas which are district headquarters of colonial times subdivision headquarters of colonial times it has nothing to do with any economic process like space capitalization so you just import that idea and put up in Indian system it will only create real urban gap rather than bridging them so therefore this is one way of looking at this gap today and that is what you need to understand the second idea which you talked about regarding this disposition in villages and agriculture and all these things I think it is a little bit of a complex thing the traditional theory will tell you that if there is a migration happening from the agriculture to non-agriculture it is actually development and that is the classic Totoro model the louis model louisian transformation that agriculture has a lot of disguised unemployment so therefore productivity is very low if it is good that the people are coming out of agriculture and then they are in other sectors where their income is high and that has been written by many people including Carl O'Leary in 1950s which is called great transformation now is it so we need to ask this question to our agricultural situation as well so I think no it is not because this transformation is not happening because we have reached an optimum in agriculture we have not reached an optimum in agriculture we have uncultivated land Assam irrigation you know the total area cultivated irrigation percentage is actually 4.3% out of total cultivated area you are having irrigation only in 4.3% of gross cultivated so it is not reached an optimum that people are now being disguisedly employed and therefore they are coming out it is actually two things happening it is an enormous income squeeze in the rural areas one is being done by one process increasing cost of inputs and not giving prices so therefore income falls and also as a policy you are monetizing lot of services which were earlier provided by the state like education help become increasingly costly so therefore two squeeze happening one is the cost price squeeze in the agricultural product and second other expenses for individuals are also growing so you are finding that agriculture is no more remunerative and people are coming out not that they are coming out of the optimum level already achieved so therefore you need to understand these processes if you want to make sense of it and then you know then you will be able to relate these why there is a squeeze income happening that is precisely because of the available policies and all you can easily read that how why cost of inputs are growing by the way I can give you one data for Assam the fertilizer cost in Assam from 2006 no from 2006 to 2016 have increased by 377 percent over 20 years the fertilizer cost in Assam per hectare of pedicultivation increased by 377 percent what is the price increase it is actually 11 percent so cost is increasing by more than 350 times price is increasing only by 11 times the thing about the squeeze that is happening in earning so therefore it is important and then you link it up to the subsidy to the fertilizer and all then you will find there is a you know debate going on that what kind of things government should give free at my point what kinds of things government should give free so that is an interesting debate I do not want to go into that debate but the individual of subsidy individual of these things are to be re looped because it is a different context we are not having a agriculture which is like you know America or which is like New Zealand or which is like Australia we have it all set even within India we have a very peculiar kind of you know land holding what is the average size of land holding in Assam it is actually less than one hectare average and I am talking about the operational holding not the ownership holding ownership holding is less so if you combine taken on you know just tenancy then also it is going to be less than one hectare so one hectare land what is the absorption capacity of cost it is very less so if you go on increasing the cost and land size does not increase it is un-economic for all farmers so you have to think about and that is my suggestion is that you go to people talk to them find out solution taking them on board rather than saying that okay this is the you know thing that this has worked elsewhere so it is going to work for you as well I think if you pursue like that and the most dangerous thing is that that there is an argument that why we have problem because the reforms are not enough at my point the reforms are a problem sometimes you are trying to do certain things it is already creating problem and you think that it is not sufficient and therefore you want to even more reform and that is not going to solve the problem it will give you more problem so therefore this argument not having enough reform is also rather problematic so these are the things probably you can look at and then you can examine Thank you In your presentation in one of the slides there was a graph in which the GDP and per capita across decades increased so and I just noted one figures of 1950 to 1970 there was a chart in this 1950 to 1990 this one 1950 to 1970 for this portion and if we just context realize it which our own country say we adopted the planned economy model and then was the 1960s we just embraced the green revolution then onward we started embracing a model something like go to jail go to jail that go to jail was mostly in terms of illegal self-utilization and all those mostly the constitution was urban public sector like the commanding high schools it is onwards only a kind of context which you have quoted or presented was in the modern market society as a social organization that started immersing and so two different contextual references have been made in terms of imposition of some of the ideas from the otherwise developed countries but our own development basically did not have a source we got independence we adopted the planned economy model 1990 to 1990 those came inevitably and alongside that go to jail campaign go to jail and go to jail not only in terms of the developmental problems but the government in terms of illegal self-utilization green revolution and all other things so that the same government and who presented the corruption and market that who produces what and who gets what so who produces what it's mostly in 1980s and 90s it's the urban producing so the name was and from brutal to urban it's mostly people that migration and some brutal artisans products like that mostly urban brutal means that we have experience over this historical period it was inevitable it came inevitable automatically it came but subsequently it also has resulted in more progress alongside the this inequality as well and because the investment came in terms of industry in past etc. so with this the kind of central argument that we posed is really thinking development so you also talked about us to think about the new rationality so the new rationality in terms of this inequality in terms of social aspect as if the ruler is losing his ruler character ruler is losing his ruler character by embracing the model of good death by doing ruler the ruler is losing his ruler character and we are having a developed market and so to say some people might also say that we are having a developed market we are having a underdeveloped market so maybe you are wondering about that because we are moving to another big time that's the comment I think I would like to respond very quickly to that one is that this is a global data which also includes the Indian data and Indian data will also be the same as you have suggested and that is the this is the period 1950s and 1960s and up to 1973 actually you get the same kind of train across the globe and that is the period for which Kail Polayani has written this great transformation the one argument is that what has happened actually how this kind of growth took place during that period the idea was and that is the the period where there was a lot of investment there was a compromise between the labour and capital in a very broad sense what is the labour and capital compromise that profit share was shared with the labour in terms of cost for their education and health during the 50s and 60s which resulted in increasing productivity of labour during that period so the people understood that if you invest in labour and make them happy and good life and then the productivity will increase which will actually create more profit for the corporates as well so there was a kind of understanding and that is the endogenous growth theories of that during that period explaining what is happening 50s and 60s they are suggesting that you need to have you cannot have enormous profit the world is not that you know kind of thing it is very fragile so you will not have historical context for very persuasive and aggressive kind of competition so what you come up with is a design that there is a compromise happening that you share certain amount of profit with the labour invest them in increasing their productivity in terms of investment in health and education and in term their productivity will increase which will also contribute to the profit so historical data this is precisely the period where only in the history only exception in the history where you get both profit and wages going up this is the history in 1950s and 1960s so and that is where people talked about there is something unique happening contrary to the idea that profit will grow at the expense of wages that is not happening and because of this investment in labour the both wage share and profit share increased and that is classified as a golden period of capitalism and that is the precisely the period and that is explained India of course has a different you know context you got independence in during the independence you have a development also has a political content you promise lot of artisans lot of farmers that to end their you know sufferings in terms of colonial exploitation and so on and so forth so series of production measures were also given to those artisans those peasants and those farmers as well so during the 50s and 60s you get lot of land reforms lot of ideas where the idea was this is the Nehru's idea of the economic policy somehow the colonialism all about exposing your people to the global market and vulnerabilities of the global market thus if you want to reverse that you have to insulate the exposure of those petty producing sector from the global market and that is precisely Nehru's idea through a series of protection which somehow helped those petty producing class during 1950s and 60s and the India could also sort of improve situation which produced lot of you know capital and surplus for investment and to project to have a project like that now today the crisis of agricultural is that you are having so less income that you are hardly left with any investment for agricultural expansion you do not get so only state can invest so if state is not investing in education state is not providing any you know kind of thing there is no way by which private capital can be invested because you don't have capital similar was the case with the 50s and 60s you look at the agricultural spending of many 50s and 60s enormous spending was done providing some income protection was done and thereby improving certain conditions and then providing a platform or at least ground to help in revolution in 1964 to be precise so that's the you know kind of thing so India had the same kind of trajectory of course with a different kind of thing and the world had this compromise coming in in general in terms of wage and profit share and that is where and then as much as we are coming in and then giving this kind of boost in that particular period so that's the broad understanding probably one has to look into good afternoon very as such because many of the areas agreed to me but whatever was English from that I have a little understanding first of all reminded me this experience of his presentation reminded me of a military general he was the deputy commander in Pentagon and he was talking to us on American military policy in South Asia the resemblance is first resemblance he was as tall as Joydeep second almost like Joydeep he was an outer thing entity and third in terms of content as Joydeep talked to us this evening with the highest level of confidence in his command that was the similar confidence with which the deputy commander of Pentagon was speaking here you see that was the similarity coming to the part that I understood I find one part that is my understanding is a kind of maximum satisfaction in minimum times next observation I remember a philosopher in the utilitarian school of thought with the there will be mental there will be mental in his there was the maximum satisfaction for the maximum there was the western political thought in Indian scenario of development what do you find in JP's philosophy satisfaction for all that is the philosophy of soliloquy to you find a kind of similarity in your whole philosophy of new welfare states to that of the philosophy of welfareism that was initiated by JP Diane in the form of soliloquy so partly yes and partly no as an ideology I think there is a close resemblance what I am speaking about to JP's idea of soliloquy inclusiveness, democratic and so and so forth so that part is okay to my understanding JP's idea was not a very right based approach but it was more of a voluntary kind of thing and there I differ I do not see a very great scope for volunteerism bringing end to the suffering of people you need organized movement and organized activities, political mobilization in terms of people's right to end this kind of hegemony JP was having a different context JP's idea was different he was not fighting with this kind of hegemony economic financial order where certain things were possible by exercising country's own individual agency and so forth which I do not see a great possibility today so only possibility today is actually is probably to have a larger mobilization along the rights of people to out come out of this kind of trap that we are having so that's the difference so therefore partly yes in terms of ideology not in terms of tactics probably JP would have followed so it was a very nice presentation in the group over so compliments on that economics is not my cup of tea we are time to know various states of economics and the rethinking development the title itself whether it is a thinking development or a thinking economic development when it comes to development there are many kinds of developments there should be many perspectives so that's where the developments are in a very case scenario different aspects are there so when we have to rethink about development along with the economic development about the other aspects so when it comes to the other perspective there may be certain contradiction with the economics there may not be always balance so I think that may be one observation in your thought but I always say it's a prominent development part what we are doing from your side it gives you a very good understanding about the economic points of development only my observation was that there should be a total development that might be linked with this your idea of having to revisit development and that of drug process theory of distributive justice and of course I have been doing drugs for 7 years and so I find this I can say that this theory of distributive justice is going to be and then we are going to this in the face of the also the new liberal I mean the state the political sovereignty has become subservient to the market forces I think the activation of the distributive justice is the only way of having drug and so regarding drug process theory of distributive justice and your idea of having to revisit development could there be some you will be seeing some similarity because distributive justice idea will emerge only when there is a distributive injustice and precisely that was I was talking about that there is an enormous inequality happening in terms of share of wealth collectively and individually there is a ground for thinking about redistributive justice you can have different positions of redistributive justice Rawls is one of them but not the only one you know you have other versions of distributive justice as well so there is a great scope for it so I completely agree on that and last point probably that you have talked about that political sovereignty and economic sovereignty I think that's a very interesting point I elsewhere argue very forcefully wherever I can that what is the difference between the earlier regime and this regime in the earlier regime there was no difference between political sovereignty and economic sovereignty you can pursue the economic policies if you are sovereign country, sovereign society or so and so now the difference is that that there is a compromise happening and it is increasingly quoting compromise that political sovereignty and economic sovereignty no longer co-terminates that not necessarily that political sovereign country will be equally sovereign to pursue the policies that they want to pursue and that happened in Greek you know you remember recall the Syriza government and all those things that they were thrown out because they want to have their own sets of policies so it's not possible and during that period of time I was in Athens in 2014 I was actually in Athens attending and conference and attending a course so I was there for a month so I was seeing prior to election what was happening there was a square like Diwali Pukri here in the Sintangma square people get that shouted you know that I also participated sort of like thing you don't know in Greek also so that's the you know kind of thing that was happening so you know that it is there that there is a distinction between political sovereignty and economic sovereignty even if you are political sovereign you cannot actually pursue the set of economic policies and that is a problem and that is precisely is a problem and that is where that is a systemic hegemony I was talking about and that has been created and that has been operated upon that has been strengthened so the only way out is actually to realize that this is happening and then exert the political right that this is actually to be reversed so that's the idea I was trying to in the past I should call this a meeting because we have given a brainstorming session I am enjoying because for last almost three years I have been out of table session because I am working on the economy though I am a student of economics actually I am not putting any integration or all questions or to you from this perspective I want to know from the very I know just layman's perspective of development so if you ask anyone that what is development you will get there I am sorry very simple I am happy because of this this is called development if you ask this sort of question common man I have observed that the development theories will be always developing because there will be no end of the age except working must also there will be new models of development in different situations in different societies that perception is already you know when you see maybe development in a particular community they may not think that we are development so these standard decisions political inferences are the civil rights moment all because that overall you may have to consider all those things to give the right kind of model for development so here we have from your observation and we agree that the criminal society is always very difficult from the whatever your schemes and all we have observed as if there are marginalization all can be different inclusive this has in our even in our planet also but even then we find differences there are inequalityism getting more and more inequality we find that in society even if we find that even like now that we understand even it is a discussion that the whole you know country's resources are now now in the hands of few people that means this is not good for the democracy but for the economies also they have different theories they will support it so there will be contradictions always and I think this will continue but there will be changes of everything you have mentioned theories also changing capitalism also changing because this is a must that people continue to check I find a bit I want to focus on government here particularly the conflicts the political interest is important because development of the whole thing for 5 years in particular one political that means party will consider development part so then another 5 years people will come up they will think in different policies they will go to implement there will be conflicts in between that say for example social life dark projects all civilized activities the social cost is involved there is two things development part and the social cost is involved I would like to give focus on the social how do you like to become civil because growth is important development is important we have to think of the social cost too so please go on this I think I don't know how I will be able to respond to this but mine will be like this there are two questions involved one is the academy what should be the role of academy in whole this exercise and second one is the role of those who practice development or pursue development makes policies for them so that's a government or other agencies to do the four academies I think that we need to realize that we are trying to understand the development in a very homogenous way which is not so that's the first point that realization is missing these days now the syllabus will be given by UGC you know you have an architecture for that homogenizing the ideas and knowledge so APIs are there so you will write only to select list of journals so there is no option that you can write elsewhere it will not be counted those journals will be saying that you are writing this thing will not publish it so you will write only the one kind of story that will circulate that will revolve around it will create a peer it will get edited it will create a good architecture in academic cycle which actually complements this kind of standardization we need to realize and somehow come out of this so that's the first part and that was precisely one part of the purpose of this talk second purpose was about the practices how do you reconcile the social cost in this I had the opportunity of evaluating some of the social cost projects including the house house the cost-benefit analysis was done by many of them the standard worldwide manual says that rehabilitation cost should be a part of the project cost you have to make this I will be probably knowing that rehabilitation cost should be a part of the project cost now if you increase the project cost by giving more rehabilitation then your economic cost-benefit analysis will go to a negative so if you want to pursue the project at my point what we will do try to reduce the project cost then only the economic benefit will emerge so social cost benefit will emerge so all physical kind of thing you cannot reduce because this is structurally given so the maximum compromise is done on the rehabilitation part so you give minimum rehabilitation package to keep this project cost low in order to make internal rate of return high so that projects becomes viable and then end up having all kind of political manifestation of this kind so it is very simple you simply make a lobby and that is what is the right if you consider that this is actually a project cost which is neoclassical rationality it requires minimization of cost if you forgot that and consider this individual says right you simply put this cost out of the project cost and treat it separately that can be done by the academic people we can actually form lobbies and when I was there I tried to lobby this that it cannot be a part of project cost it is a different kind of cost altogether it is a right of people then if it is a right it is not factor of production and how can you combine this right cost with a factor of production cost so you have to separate it out moment you separate it out this rehabilitation package from the project cost then it is perfectly possible to give a good deal of you know rehabilitation package it is now no way it is linked to the project cost you can still have high you know internal returns so that's how there is a role of academic in reconciling this kind of conflicts and there are other roles as well which you can actually do in the government circle as well so but only thing that you need to understand recognize where the problem is and this is the problem that people are considered as a part of it factor of production in the standard neoclassical framework and that is where the problem is if you consider them as citizen people then you have a whole different kind of understanding in treating these problems and reconciling it I think that's the fundamental thing probably we need to think about and that is what I was saying this time yeah sir I am here really thinking of the development uh the way we use that can we think of development uh in same line mode can we think of development in same line mode so uh might hope you like that so we are perceiving development in terms of new we are perceiving development in terms of new buildings we are perceiving development in terms of development but in contrast to this we are not perceiving development in terms of education we are not perceiving development in terms of education so everything that that's why I am asking that development is like a same world even not of the same is broken then how can we think of development how can we think of development that is my way so I don't have anything to dispute with that I mean the perfectly fine for me and that is precisely the point and that is why I said that people have their own ideas of development so it is important to go back to people and ask what development means for them Bhutan has done the exercise the opportunity of involved in that exercise as well Bhutan has done that exercise they went to people asked what are the important things for them and then trying to do but Bhutan is a different society more or less homogeneous, ours is quite different I give you one or two examples when Lukis policy happened and that will probably give you the answer when Lukis policy happened there was an effort of developing infrastructure in terms of logistics roads, bridges connectivity and so on and there was a proposal for a road, 6 lane highway from the town Sampai in Mizra to Jokathar which is a point of Myanmar and India 6 lane highway and I visited there and I could see that it is actually hill and if you want to have a 6 lane highway you have to dismantle entire hill because in that slope only single highway is possible if you want to extend that to 2 lane 3 lane, 4 lane then you have to actually cut down the hill completely and then you can have only that road like this so that why that is happening because you try to project a 6 lane highway as a good road which is not good for hills you have not discussed about the terrain you have not talked about the slopes you have not talked about anything geophysical features you have not talked to people you have projected that you need to have a good logistics 6 lane highway contain a movement big tracks that they should move they cannot move because this is hill that is my point that is the idea of development that we have that is the standardized idea of development that I am contesting instead of this you look at the source of drinking water of Sampai town if after 80 years of independence your state is not being able to provide a clean glass of water and that has been compensated by a 6 lane highway cutting down the hills I think that is a serious problem of development and we need to really respect and rethink about it now we come to the conclusion of this talk I think for nice type of presentations I thank everyone for participating in this program and lastly I thank authority of our university for giving us the opportunity to organize this program I do hope we can continue these traditions with your kind congratulations thank you very much