Articles by Sanjaya Baru

Sanjaya Baru This note tries to place the Budget for 1985-86 within the overall context of the political economy of Indian economic development and the likely growth strategy into which the Budget fits. While it is premature to make any conclusive assessment, it is worth focusing attention on some of the questions raised in this note, if only to define the broad parameters within which the Budget must be viewed.

Political Economy of Sugar Policy, 1932-47 Sanjaya Baru Any analysis of the dynamics of the sugar economy and of the nature and content of sugar policy in post-Independence India requires a proper understanding of its historical background and the context within which the existing structure of the industry has emerged.

Populism and the Plan COMING as it did only two months before the elections to the state Legislature the launching of the Mid- Day Meals Scheme for school children in the age group of 6 to 11 years has naturally been viewed as a pre-election stunt. This widespread impression prevails, despite almost daily denials by the ruling party, because Andhra Pradesh is simply not in a position as of today to take on the financial burden of such a massive and creditable programme. And what surprises most observers is that the state's economy should have come to such a pass when barely a year ago the then Governor of the Reserve Bank of India had commended the state government for its 'prudent financial management'.


fumine-stricken areas to elsewhere. Market demands are not reflections of biological needs or psychological desires, but choices based on exchange entitlement relations. If one doesn't have much to exchange, one can't demand very much, and may thus lose out in competition with others whose needs may be a good deal less acute, but whose entitlements are stronger" (p 161). Each of these statements is true, but, let it be tremulously suggested, banally true, and it is, in the opinion of the present reviewer, a stupendous waste of Amartya Sen's time and talent that conclusions, so trivial in nature, have to be tagged at the end of an unnecessarily elongated text.

tions. John Matthai, the Finance Minister, saw the Planning Commission "as a tool of Nehru to reduce the importance of the industrial and commercial classes''. Gopal however fails to mention that Sardar Patel succeeded in deleting a passage from the original draft that would have denned the purpose of planning as "the progressive elimination of social, political and economic exploitation inequality, the motive of private gain in economic activity or organisation of society and the anti-social concentration of wealth and means of production". 3 Further, Nehru first offered the chairmanship of the Planning Commission to conservative leaders like Rajendraprasad and Rajagopala- chari. As both of them declined the offer, he became its chairman. But despite his chairmanship and his preference for 'socialistic' planning, the status of the Planning Commission, did not rise beyond that of an advisory broad. He had hardly any idea of what the Planning Commission was doing. "I am almost completely out of touch. Occasionally some paper may come to me. But the real job of planning is to think and discuss vital matters. Either this is done without my knowledge or this is not done at all, because I have no information about it" (p 198).