Interviewee: Montek Ahluwalia (India & Magdalen 1964) [hereafter ‘MA’]
Moderator: Syed Khalid (India & St Antony’s 2023) [hereafter ‘SK’]
Date of interview: 28 August 2024.
SK: Okay. Would you mind saying your full name for the recording, please?
MA: Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
SK: And do I have your permission for the interview?
MA: Yes, yes, go right ahead. You have my permission.
SK: Okay. That’s great. So, Dr Ahluwalia, can you tell us when and where you were born?
MA: Oh, I was born on 24 November 1943 in Rawalpindi, which is now in Pakistan. It was then part of India, of course.
SK: Okay. And what was your family’s background?
MA: You know, my father was a lower-level civil servant in the Defence Accounts Department and we moved all over India, wherever he got posted.
SK: Okay. And that’s how you came to be in Rawalpindi?
MA: Well, no. Rawalpindi happens to be my original family home, and he also happened to be there, but he was also a part of the government administration and was moved around, and we moved with him. So, we were in India when the country was partitioned.
SK: Okay. So, you moved around a lot as a child, so, what was your impression of the country of India during your formative years?
MA: Oh, you know, I spent a couple of years at a place called Saharanpur, and then a year or so in Ambala, which are very close to each other.
MA: And then, we moved and stayed for about six years in Secunderabad, which is the twin city to Hyderabad in the Deccan, which was an army centre. And of course, whenever you have an army, you have all these accountants, and that was really what my father’s job was. No, my impression-, I mean, you know, we were, kind of, like, the first generation to actually grow up in the independent India and, you know, had a very positive assessment of the country, its prospects, etc, etc. I mean, we knew we were an underdeveloped country, but we had all the sort of hopes that, you know, ‘Things are going to improve,’ which they did, in a manner of speaking.
SK: And so, you witnessed the partition of India first-hand?
MA: No, I didn’t, because, you know, I mean, I was actually in India at the time of partition.
MA: My mother’s family happened to be in Lahore at the time, and they moved across, but luckily for them, they across in a convoy of army trucks. So, there were none of the unhappy events that the majority of people moving from both sides to the other side experienced. So, they crossed over without any difficulty.
SK: And so, what kind of hobbies did you have growing up? What were you most interested in?
MA: I wasn’t a very strong sports kind of guy. I mean, you know, I played badminton and cricket indifferently, primarily because you’ve got to play something, but that was never my big interest.
SK: So, you were always into studying and reading and these kinds of things?
MA: Yes. I think I was more, kind of-, studying, of course, everybody was more or less pushed into studying. I mean, coming from a middle-class background – in fact, you might say a lower middle-class background, parents were constantly informing us that, ‘Look, we are going to take care of giving you a decent education, but for the rest, you’ve got to make your own life.’ And vaguely, you have the sense that you also have to look after your parents, because they were spending all their savings on educating you.
SK: And so, what was the schooling like, both in Secunderabad and then later in New Delhi at the Delhi Public School?
MA: Well, you know, schools were-, I mean, it’s very difficult to judge the quality of schooling, but there’s no question that-, I went to a missionary school in Secunderabad, which was really quite common in those days. The public schooling system had not yet expanded. The mission schools were generally quite good and I mean, I did well at school, but I don’t think the school necessarily had a very high standard. And that was one of the things that I, kind of, owe to my father, because he was very good at his work, but he was not a member of the, sort of, elite Indian Defence Account Service, which is the grade one service which provides top officers. And towards the end of his career, which was coming closer to me finishing school, his office told him that, ‘Look, you work is very good and for very good people, we normally promote them in the last two to three years of their lives, into the upper-end service,’ and you can stick the initials IDAS after your name, which was a big thing for someone in the service.
But what they said was that, ‘Look, since you would be put in as the junior-most of the IDAS officers, you would have to be solely in charge of a much smaller office than the one in Secunderabad. So, you would have to move to a small town, although you would have a bigger job in that office than you do here. But we realise that you may not want, at this stage, to move to a small town, and your family is in Delhi. So, we are willing to-, instead of promoting you, we will shift you to Delhi at the same level.’ And my father thought that-, he took that option and, sort of, gave up being upgraded into the IDAS, primarily because he felt the schooling would be better, which it was. And I mean, I don’t think I would have done as well in school and later on, therefore, in college if he had opted to move to a smaller town. So, in a way, I mean, I owed my Rhodes Scholarship to my father’s decision.
SK: Okay. That’s great. So, this shift to New Delhi seems to have played a major role in your life and in shaping your career as well. In a way, it began with you going to St. Stephen’s College. What were your years in St. Stephen’s like? What was your experience of the college back then?
MA: You know, most people find their experience of college to be very good, because it’s indistinguishable from your experience of being between 17 and 20 years old. So, it was great fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it. St. Stephen’s was very much geared to people who wanted to join the administrative services. So, it wasn’t a great academic college. It was geared to doing well in the civil services exams. But I must say, it provided a wide range of things to do, extracurricular activities. You met a lot of people from all over the country. In those days, it was perhaps the top college in India.
MA: So, I really enjoyed my stay there, no question.
SK: And you did economics there, was it?
MA: Yes. I did a BA honours in economics.
SK: Okay. And then, after that, you also did a master’s?
MA: No, I registered for a master’s, but simultaneously, because I got a first in the BA honours, I applied for a Rhodes Scholarship and was lucky and got it. So, of course, I was told in November of 1963, but I would go next September, or whatever, to Oxford. So, I kept on doing the MA, remained enrolled in the MA, and hung around the university, but generally enjoyed myself doing student journalism and debates and that sort of thing.
SK: Okay. So, how did you come to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship? Because even now, not many people know about it, and I’m guessing back then too?
MA: No, no, in St. Stephen’s, they all knew about it, because the Rhodes Scholarship secretary was based in St. Stephen’s and many people from St. Stephen’s managed to get into the Rhodes Scholarship.
MA: So, we knew about it.
SK: Okay. And what was the selection process like? Did you have written applications? Did you have interviews?
MA: I can’t remember. I think you applied and then you got interviewed and that was it, [10:00] and the interview process was about, you know, a half an hour interview. And before that, you met the selection committee for a dinner or something.
MA: But predominantly, they were going by your academic performance and your performance in the interview.
SK: Okay. I see. And so, you went to Oxford in September 1964.
SK: And what was your impression of first coming to the UK? What did you feel like, coming to a different country?
MA: Well, you know, it was the first time I’d travelled abroad. I mean, I decided, rather than fly, it was the same to go by ship, and therefore I went by ship. I went to Bombay, stayed with a friend for a couple of days, took a ship, went all the way up through the Suez Canal to Genoa, then crossed the Alps in a train, got into the ferry at Calais, landed at Dover, took the train to London, stayed with friends for a couple of days and then went off to Oxford. So, I got a nice exposure to what the Middle East and Europe and England were like before arriving in Oxford.
SK: And how long did this trip take?
MA: The trip? Oh, I think it took about ten days, from Bombay to landing in Dover. About ten days, actually.
SK: Okay. And so, upon reaching Oxford, what did you do first?
MA: Well, I mean, I went to the college and got my rooms. That’s about it.
SK: And did you go to Rhodes House? Did you have some event, or some dinner?
MA: You know, yes, there were-, I mean, Rhodes House tried to provide a, kind of, focus for Rhodes Scholars other than the college.
MA: But I think most of us viewed it-, we were obviously grateful to the Trust for funding us, but I didn’t want to dilute the college experience by also, sort of, focusing very much on Rhodes House. I mean, of course, the Warden would invite you for a dinner, which was very nice, and he was a very nice guy. But I didn’t spend much time in Rhodes House as such. I spent all my time, essentially, trying to fit into the college, get involved in Oxford Union activities, that type of stuff.
SK: And you were also a member of the Oxford Union?
SK: How was your experience of that, given that you had already been debating in St. Stephen’s and the Delhi University circuit?
MA: Well, I mean, you know, I don’t know how it’s regarded now, but certainly in those days the Oxford Union was regarded as the premier university debating society in the whole world. So, I enjoyed it enormously. I mean, having done debates before, it wasn’t difficult. But the debates in the Oxford Union were very different from the debates in Delhi University, because in Delhi University, debates were judged by judges who were either semi-academics or outsiders. So, all the speakers tried to impress three people who were judging the debate. The Oxford Union debates are supposed to simulate what happens in the House of Commons. So, people are trying to address and impress the audience and get them to vote either for the motion or against the motion. It’s a very different style of debating. I don’t know whether it has changed. I think it hasn’t. And I think it was, to me, a very much more attractive form of debating than just performing before a bunch of judges.
SK: What experiences were most significant for you at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar? What stands out?
MA: Look, I don’t believe in identifying individual experiences.
MA: My overall experience is that I wanted to do well academically, and I think I did. And I studied hard, and I found the method of teaching very different from Delhi University.
MA: Because the method of teaching did not require you to go to specific lectures and take down notes. I mean, you did that, but there were hundreds of lectures and you need not attend any. I mean, you could just work on the basis of y our textbooks or other books. You didn’t have to attend lectures: only in economics. You could attend any lectures, and I did some of that, particularly in history. And I thought the tutorial system was much better, because we also had a tutorial system in St. Stephen’s College where you had to write a little essay. I think the tutorial system was more engaging and bringing out the individual rather than just ticking off whether you’ve made some important points that would be relevant for your exam. So, I was quite pleased with the quality of the academic instruction and also the atmosphere in Oxford.
SK: You have also talked, in your book, about how you used to go and attend lectures of famous philosophers and academics. Can you tell us a bit about that? What was that experience like?
MA: Well, you know, for example, the two most famous economists there were Sir John Hicks and Sir Roy Harrod. Both were terrible lecturers. But you know, we went to their lectures because we had read their books and we wanted to be able to say, ‘I’ve heard sir John Hicks’ and ‘I’ve heard Sir Roy Harrod.’ But then, when you wanted to find out what the hell they were saying, you would actually read their books. The lectures were a way of personalising your involvement with that part of the subject. You also had Jack Gallagher, who a historian of India, and a Victorian historian, and not one whose views I particularly sympathised with. But it was interesting to hear his lectures, you know.
SK: Okay. And so, you did a DPhil at Oxford?
MA: I did PPE at Oxford and then went on to a BPhil. PPE was done at Magdalen and then the BPhil was done at St Antony’s, which is your college, I think.
SK: Yes. What was your experience of being at these two colleges? What was the shift like?
MA: Well, I’ve written about it extensively in my book, but I mean, look, Magdalen was an undergraduate experience. Terrific fun, great college, beautiful college. And I met a lot of people, some of whom I’m still in contact with, which was very nice. St Antony’s was a little more-, by then, I was doing an MPhil. I wasn’t being tutored by anyone in the college. I was also quite active in the Union. So, St Antony’s was more a place to have lunch and dinner, rather than build any great personal relationships, partly because – and that’s why I went there – it wasn’t an economics college. It did have-, the Agatha Harrison chair or professor of history at that time was. S. Gopal, whom I got to know very well. So, I spent a lot of time chatting to Gopal. But other than that, by then most of my Oxford life was really around the Union.
SK: Okay. I see. And after Oxford, you joined the World Bank in Washington in 1968.
SK: So, this was your first practical exposure, as it were, to the world of development economics.
SK: And then you travelled to a lot of countries to assess various local projects. Could you tell us a bit more about your time there at the World Bank in this capacity?
MA: Well, I went to the World Bank-, I mean, basically, look, I wanted to work in economics policy and I mean, there were two reasons. First of all, the World Bank in those days was expanding and aggressively recruiting what they called young professionals who, after a two-year internship would, if they were satisfactory, be absorbed in the bank. And several people applied. And so, partly, I applied because it was [20:00] the done thing to do. My original intention was to apply to the Indian Administrative Service. But, you know, I realised that I didn’t want to be a generalist administrator. I wanted to be an economist, and joining the Indian Administrative Service, there was absolutely no guarantee that I would be working on economic policy. They would give me whatever assignment they thought was useful, and I didn’t find that very attractive.
So, I said, ‘Why don’t I go to the World Bank, learn a little bit about what other countries are doing, and then go back to India, perhaps join the government laterally?’ which was possible in those days. I originally thought I would be in the World Bank for three or four years. It ended up being 11, because I met my wife there. I mean, she was doing a PhD at MIT, and she came to the IMF. So, we met and then, of course, you know, we got married, had a kid, and this delayed the plan to return. So, actually, I returned to India only in 1979, but I was applying to India from around 1977 onwards.
SK: And so, during your time at the World Bank, you became the chief of the income distribution division and you played an instrumental role in the development of the book, Redistribution with Growth, and you were also on the panel which consequently produced this book, which was aimed at tackling poverty. And this was also the time of decolonisation in a lot of Afro-Asian countries gaining independence from imperialism, and so on. Could you talk a bit about the situation of poverty in developing countries in those times, how that was being tackled, and what you thought could have been done better?
MA: Well, you know, everything could have always been done better, and that’s true for all countries, rich, poor, and certainly for the UN. But yes, decolonisation, a lot of new countries became independent. I think the focus on poverty is really the result of McNamara realising around 1973 that the desire to give aid, which originated from ‘Let’s save these countries from communism,’ that had evaporated. People didn’t think that all these countries were going to become communist, and what McNamara wanted was some basis for appealing to the broader public opinion that aid is doing some good. Because I think around the same time, there was a view that ‘Aid was just being misused’ and, you know, people don’t like giving aid. And so, people said, ‘Look, we’re giving all this money, where is it going?’ And there was a very substantial body of opinion that said, ‘It’s going to the hand of corrupt governments, and that is absolutely wasted.’
So, McNamara is the one who said, ‘Look, since the foreign policy compulsion is to give aid, which is to prevent these countries from joining the communist bloc, has more or less disappeared, how I do mobilise opinion?’ So, he mobilised opinion, thinking that the NGOs and the, sort of, softer side of Western opinion would be attracted by the idea of lifting people out of poverty. So, to say that, ‘Look, we’re not just giving aid to these countries can be misused by dictators, etc., but we’re going to carefully design the project so that the poor get the benefit.’ Now, whether he achieved that or not, that’s a separate issue, but that was a very important part of his messaging, and I think redistribution of growth was conceived of primarily to persuade people that with the right policies, it is possible to push the type of development which would actually help the poor, and that’s what all that was about.
SK: And how was this policy recommendation received by not only these countries but, let’s say, other policy-makers within the World Bank, or within the larger financial system?
MA: Sorry, how was this taken by whom?
SK: How was this policy recommendation taken by the World Bank, or by the countries?
MA: No, no. The World Bank clearly bought the idea. They were selling a line that, ‘Look, we are going to make sure the money you give us goes into development projects that help the poor. So, internally, they were trying to, sort of, do what could to make it happen. How much of that actually impacted country policy is a separate issue here because, you know, the World Bank gives only a very small amount of aid compared to total development assistance, at least in middle-income countries. Maybe in very small, poor countries, it is more dominant. So, the issue always is, you know, did the World Bank just pick up what the country would have done anyway? Because the country knew that, ‘These guys are only interested in projects that help the poor, so we’ll give them, so we’ll give them all these projects,’ while they diverted all the money to other things. I mean, the sceptics of foreign aid emphasise this aspect, that the project you finance is not really the additional project that the country is picking up, because you may be financing just a few good projects, which they would have done anyway, and what you’ve really done is, you release the resource constraint on the country so they can use their own resources for other things. That’s impossible to disprove. But, you know, the bank’s view was that if you put this across as an idea, then the idea will seep into intellectual consciousness in the developing countries and have an impact on policy, which is fair enough, I think.
SK: So, after your stint with the World Bank, you decided to return to India in the capacity of an economic adviser. What prompted this decision?
MA: Well, I told you, I always wanted-, I mean, I didn’t think that in the World Bank, you could influence policy. You’re just fooling around with policy. I mean, countries would listen to you and say, ‘Thank you very much,’ and then you go home having written a good report. The only way, if you want to influence policy in a particular country, either you have such a huge amount of money that you can more or less dictate the terms-, I mean, the US was in a position to do that in Europe with the Marshall Plan because the Europeans had no option and the money was large. Other than that, if you want to influence policy, you have to do it in your own country, accepting all the constraints, which are many. So, I wanted to go back, and we chose an occasion to go back, when this vacancy opened up.
SK: And so, upon joining in the capacity of an economic adviser, what did you notice about India’s economy that you thought needed a lot of restructuring and changing?
MA: Well, you know, there had been a lot of discussion on this subject in, if you like, the economic community, that India was excessively interfering in market functioning. It was constraining its private sector. It had built high protective walls, and basically was running a more or less closed economy, which was bad. And I shared that view. But you know, when you join a government, you cannot join a government saying-, joining a government is not like being a cardiac surgeon. I mean, somebody comes in with a heart attack, they lie down flat on the bed and they trust you and God and then they say, ‘Okay, doc, save my life’ and leave it to you. As an economist, you’re part of an influence set. You can say your bit. You have to persuade people. So, it’s a long-term effort. I enjoyed it. I mean, I spent some time becoming one of the boys working from inside, persuading people. The main thing is to express your view clearly, even when it’s against the dominant tide. Of course, you slightly moderate it so they don’t reject you out of hand, and that’s a very special, kind of, act of persuasion, which I enjoyed.
SK: And one of the ways that this, sort of, process of persuasion manifested itself was in a document called the ‘M document,’ which you talk about in the book.
MA: That happened later. You know, I was in the finance ministry for a whole five years, and I mean, I think I began to have some impact on a few things. I then moved to the prime minister’s office when Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as prime minister in 1985. That put me in a position where I could interact with different ministries with a certain level of authority, because ministries always defer to the PM’s office. So, it gave me a very nice positioning, maybe [30:00] punching above my weight, if you like, by virtue of being in the PM’s office. And after the PM Rajiv Gandhi lost the election, during that period, I began to realise we needed to make some fundamental changes. So, the next prime minister was V.P. Singh, and we had a discussion on why India was not doing so well, and I said, ‘It’s because we are not doing comprehensive reform.’ So, he asked me to write a note on that, which I did, and that was called the ‘M document’ and that was written, you know, some time in 1990 and discussed. He sent it to the Committee of Secretaries, headed by the cabinet secretary and said, ‘Discuss these views,’ and we had two separate discussions, and it was quite interesting, because some people were totally opposed and others were very supportive.
But you know, the difference between the M document and other documents were, generally what went to the Committee of Secretaries was what came from individual ministries and that is, to my mind, a hopeless way of functioning. Because my whole point was that there are five or six interrelated areas where you need change and all these changes must take place for the new system to work. That was easy to do, commenting from the outside, although the Planning Commission object to my doing it, saying, ‘This is the job of the Planning Commission.’ Of course, they weren’t doing it. I mean, they were just doing a continuation of the old stuff, but that’s a different matter. But it was a very useful interaction, and it did persuade me that, you know, there are people outside who agree with this, and somebody leaked the document, so it was a huge discussion in the press. And some of the discussion was very negative, but there were others who were positive, saying, ‘Yes, this is exactly what we should do,’ and that, to me, was a very good demonstration that ideas are there and people are receptive. You must find ways of putting the ideas in the open.
SK: And so, when the 1991 economic reforms finally happened, it had a very profound impact on the way the Indian economy functioned. How do you see those reforms from today’s vantage point?
MA: Well, I mean, look, no reform is perfect.
MA And I mean, we were aware that we weren’t going to achieve everything. But in a way, you judge a reform by whether it was just an incremental lurch in a broad direction or whether it was a, kind of, game-changing change. It was clearly a game-changing change. And at the same time, there were things we should have done which we knew about, we talked about, we didn’t enough of. Some things should have been done we knew about, but we were not adequately aware of the complexity of what is involved in getting things done and the political resistance. I mean, the most important is really improving the quality of education and health. I mean, it’s not something that we were not aware of, but the fact is that education – primary education and also secondary education – and primary health services and district hospitals are all in the control of state governments, and these state governments do not devolve responsibility to the district level.
So, it was an over-centralised system for the country and we were trying to get rid of the central government’s invasive control, but also hopeless over-centralised at the state level on which, frankly, we had no real instruments that left to the state governments to do. And in fact, Rajiv Gandhi was aware of this and he raised the issue that we must bring in elections at the third level, the Panchayat or the district level, and that was done by the Narsimha Rao government. Rajiv Gandhi, of course, didn’t live long enough to complete that, but whatever he wanted done was done. But even there, the devolution of finances to these lower levels had to be done by state governments under the constitution. And in making these changes, there were hortatory statements that ‘State governments must do this, state governments must do that,’ but they just didn’t, and they didn’t because nobody wants to give up power. India is excessively centralised at the state level compared to other developing countries.
And many thoughtful people say that the reason why our education and health system hasn’t responded as well-, it has responded. I think there’s too much criticism of it, and criticism is good, but what I mean is, people fail to realise that on many metrics, things are improving. But they could have improved much more, and for that, you needed decentralisation. But you know, there were very strong, even understandable resistances to decentralising. I mean, for example, many people believe that in a country like India which has, you know, caste problems and community discrimination, if you decentralise, the local authorities that would then control things would be vulnerable to caste prejudices or community prejudices, etc., and that lower castes and minorities would suffer.
But I think this is actually wrong, in my view, because what was happening is that if you shifted the money, the politics would move to where the money is. And the fact of the matter is that the lower caste numerically, particularly the lower castes plus the minorities outnumber the upper class. But you know, lower caste politicians and also minority politicians try to operate at a higher level, but the effective control, the effective areas where you can influence people’s benefits, are at the lower level. So, the idea that entrenched caste hierarchies would prevent benefits from going down, in my view, were wrong, because if you put the money there, then all the politicians would -, I mean politicians are like bees. You know, they gravitate to where the money is, honey is. That’s not actually correct, because the bees produce honey. They’re bears. They go where the honey is. But I think that we were aware of this and we talked about it, but it can only change if a basic-, it probably would have to be a constitutional change, which not only devolved responsibilities to the lower levels, which we did, but also devolved the control of functionaries and the control of finances to the lower levels. But there are huge organisational resistances. I mean, the teachers’ union, for example, does not want to have the control of education decentralised, because as a union, they’re much more effective at the state capital. Whereas if decisions to hire teachers etc. are left to the local levels, the state unions would be of no use whatsoever.
SK: So, in 2004, you were appointed deputy chairman of the Planning Commission in the new UPA government, and you worked with them for nearly nine years until 2014.
SK: Ten years. And so, what was your impression of those ten years? What changes did you try to bring in? How far were you able to take India on this path to decentralisation that we were talking about?
MA: Yes. You know, I don’t like a question like, ‘Were you able to bring in…?’ because government doesn’t operate on the basis of an individual. You’re always pushing something, pushing the borders of what’s possible. So, what you can say is, ‘What happened during that period of which I was a part?’ Well, I think there was a much clearer understanding that growth has to be not just driven by GDP, but also by inclusiveness. I mean the Eleventh Plan was called, ‘Towards Faster & More Inclusive Growth.’ So, in that, we brought in the notion that, let’s face it, we need a much better performance on agriculture, and that’s complex, and it’s complex because most of the action lies with the states. But you know, we tried to do what we could and we brought in the Rural Employment Guarantee programme, which essentially puts a floor on wages at the rural level, which was an important change. We brought in a new programme that would provide more money to the educational system to strengthen schools. But again, the control of the schools was left in the hands of the states, so although more money went, the centre wasn’t actually in a position to change all that much. And you know, the attempt [40:00] to change by introducing guidelines is not, in my view, a good idea, because whatever guideline you prescribe, the state government uses the guideline to enforce its own power.
Actually, what we should have done is have a system where this money is distributed to the local school authority, and if they want to use it to strengthen the buildings, that’s fine. If they want to use it to get specialised teachers, that’s fine. If they think it’s better to get computers, that’s fine. Leave the decision to them. And that we didn’t do, and we would not have got support from the educational establishment for it anyway, okay? One of the important things done at that time was again, in the desire to get down to the poor, widening the access of people to subsidised food. I was actually opposed to that. I mean, I thought that was a wrong approach, because we didn’t need to cover 85% of the population with a fixed quantity of food at very low prices. But anyway, we reduced that from 85% to about 67% or 70%, but still, it was too high. I mean, my view was that, look, if you want to get into the business of distributing food, you should be targeting the bottom 20%, 30% at the most because by the conventional definitions of poverty, poverty had declined. But of course, you know, those conventional definitions are very arbitrary, and I would even agree that they were quite low, but I said, ‘Look, by conventional definitions, they’re down to 20%. So, let’s raise the poverty line and say, “Let’s cover 40%”, but there’s no case for covering 85%.’ So, that’s not a battle that I won.
One of the very important things that was done then was the introduction of the Right to Information Act, which gave a legal right to people to get governments, both the centre and the state, to respond, and I think it helped to increase transparency. We did a major push in building infrastructure through public-private partnership. The point we made was, ‘Look, you don’t have to build this through the public sector alone. If you need a public contribution, invite a private contractor and offer them a subsidy and let them bid for the lowest subsidy that will get the job done and let them then build the thing and run it and earn the revenue from tolls.’ So, switching to toll roads and switching to reasonable tolls was a very important change which would not have happened if public-private partnership had not been brough on board. Now, there were problems with that, many problems, but I think they’ve been overcome, and today, most of the infrastructure that’s being built is in one form or other of public-private partnership.
SK: You talked a bit about how during those ten years, the focus shifted from GDP growth to inclusivity as well. In contemporary times, it seems that a lot of the focus has gone back to GDP and making some sort of five trillion-,
MA: No, I don’t think that’s true, actually. In the Twelfth Plan, we called it, ‘Towards Faster, More Inclusive & Sustainable Growth.’ The sustainability, the environmental issue, became very important. But frankly, we’ve had very little success, both the UPA government and the present government also. Building environmental sustainability is tough, because politicians have very short-term horizons and to do something that will protect the environment takes more time and money. It will take 20 years before you can see the benefits, whereas giving a freebie, you can see the benefits in six months’ time. And secondly, the public is usually not willing to pay the cost for environmental protection. Look, the public likes to say, ‘Well, look, don’t raise any prices, any costs, but subsidise what is good.’ But then the subsidy burden becomes totally impossible to bear. And I think we haven’t solved that problem because – and that’s also true in the West – I mean, there’s virtually no support except for a few fringe people. There is no support for serious efforts at, you know, saving environment. I mean, you see that in the United States, you see that in Britain, you see that in Europe, that when it comes to their own comfort, winter heating this, that and the other, nobody is willing to see a rise in price and the same thing in India. How to take care of that? It will only be taken care of if politicians cannot get elected without having a serious environmental programme. But I think both the West and the rest of us are failing in that.
SK: So, just a few final questions, just to track back to your time at Oxford and the Rhodes Scholarship. In hindsight, what impact did the Rhodes Scholarship have on your life, in terms of community, in terms of the funding?
MA: Well, I think-, look, the impact of the Rhodes Scholarship on my life is not significantly different from the impact of being able to go to Oxford on my life. That was huge. I know that as a Rhodes Scholar, it’s wonderful that you’re doing all this, because clearly, the Rhodes Trust, you know, would want to feel that in addition to Oxford, they contributed something. That’s a tough one. I mean, in the sense that, you know, if you ask someone, it’s very difficult to decide what the impact, let’s say, of your three or four years in Oxford had on your life anyway. But I think broadly-, I mean, after all, if you didn’t go to Oxford, maybe you’d have got some other scholarship, maybe you would have gone to America, whatever.
But assuming that one can come to the conclusion that going to Oxford had a certain impact on your life-, and my guess is-, it certainly had a big impact on my life, because I think it opened doors that, if I didn’t have an Oxford degree, would not have been opened. Although, if I had a Harvard degree, they would also have been opened. But the real question is, if I had gone to Oxford with another scholarship, what’s the difference between that and going to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship? That, to my mind, is very difficult to judge. And certainly, I felt I was actually grateful to the Trust for funding my study. And they do need a little bit of support, because I find that a lot of your colleagues in Oxford have become quite woke, frankly quite opposed to Cecil John Rhodes. Now, I’m quite sure that many of his ideas were quite reprehensible, but not any more reprehensible than others. I mean, the way to test Rhodes is that-, look, I mean, like almost everybody in the second half of the 19th century-, I mean, they were robber barons of one kind or another. Some robber barons used all their money for personal and family gain. Others set up a trust which helped a hell of a lot of people, and Rhodes is definitely in that category. As a matter of fact, we lucked out, ‘We’ meaning in India or other non-European societies. And this is not so much due to Rhodes, because I think Rhodes’s will said that he wanted the Rhodes Scholarship to be given to people irrespective of race. But actually, if you go back, I think his concept of race was, whether British or Boer. I mean, I don’t think he had in mind all sorts of black and brown and yellow people also coming in.
But the Rhodes Trust, which interprets these things, interpreted it to mean that, ‘Look, now that the world is changing and colonies are becoming independent, we should have a couple of Rhodes Scholarships to India.’ And now, there are six. At that time, there were two. Yes, of course, there were 50 Rhodes Scholars in America, and probably remain so, but they haven’t increased those, they’ve increased the others, okay? And now you have even Rhodes Scholars from Hong Kong, and certainly from Southeast Asia. So, Rhodes’s money, through, in my view, a generous and morally commendable interpretation of his will, is benefiting a very wide range of people, which I think is great. But you know, I happened to visit Oxford last year and I find that outside Oriel College, where they have a statue of Rhodes overlooking the High Street, they’ve put a, kind of, enclosure around it so that you can’t throw stones at it. [50:00] They’ve got a thing saying that ‘People feel that, you know, we shouldn’t have Rhodes’s statue, but we took a benefaction from him that there would be a statue and under the terms of that, we can’t remove it.’ I think there should be a better understanding of-, I mean, it would be much better, in my view, to write the record of Rhodes more clearly and let people judge, rather than this ridiculous business of, ‘Let’s get rid of his statue,’ type of thing, which I think is a bit foolish, actually.
I don’t know that what I’m saying is politically correct. I have no idea what Rhodes House’s current administration would think of it. But I think we should celebrate the fact that here was a guy, however he collected his money-, and by the way, the vast majority of fortunes in the late 19th century were collected in extremely dubious ways. You can only judge a person by the standards of his times. There’s no doubt that he was generous, and more importantly, I think the Rhodes Trust was forward-looking and built on that to broaden the base of the Scholarship, which I think they should emphasise. I mean, in a way, the way to emphasise it is even to show that, you know, we’re not just following Rhodes’s will. In all probability, he would be appalled at so many Indians and Africans and others becoming Rhodes Scholars. But by making the bequest on the terms that he did, he permitted a much broader interpretation.
SK: I think even at Rhodes House and the Rhodes Trust, the emphasis is currently on what you said, contextualising his life and, sort of, trying to deal with these complex questions, both in contemporary terms and seeing and negotiating what he said and all of that, his will. But yes, coming back to Oxford, what was the most unexpected thing that you did at Oxford, or that happened to you?
MA: No, nothing particularly unexpected. I guess I was very pleased to have got a congratulatory first.
MA: I didn’t think I would, quite honestly, because at one point I was very keen to do well in studies and also to compete for the presidency of the Oxford Union, and, you know, my tutor, Ken Tite, he was very critical, because I said to him, ‘Look, the Union is going to take a lot of time.’ And at the same time, I wanted to have a good shot at getting a first because he said, ‘Look, if you work hard, you can get a first.’ So, I said, ‘You know, I know that. But the thing is, the Union is also attractive and I do want to spend some time there.’ And he said, ‘There’s no problem. You can do both,’ and I was very encouraged by his confidence that I could do both, and I did. In fact, I did better, because I got a congratulatory first in PPE that year. That was unexpected. It was pleasant unexpected, positive and unexpected.
SK: And what is it that motivates you and inspires you today?
MA: Well, look, I’m 80 years old plus, so I don’t need to think of new things. I think what inspires me most is trying to make sure that my grandkids have a good, broader view of life so that they can have as broad and tolerant and open-minded, kind of, world to grow up in, because the world is currently not in that position, not just India. I’m talking about the world at large. There is a breakdown of a consensus on what is a decent society, and I’m afraid that in this respect, technology has taken us quite a step back, because WhatsApp and social media have given voice to innumerable ill-informed opinions which have a very, very powerful influence on people. I mean I regret to say that if you were to tell me that you want to make an impact on, whatever, the UK or India-, where are you from in India?
MA: Ah. Or let’s say, even Allahabad. At one point, I would have said, you know, ‘Write something so that people in the UK or in India or in Allahabad say, ‘That’s a very interesting book.’ But actually, I would have to say, ‘Just do a blog,’ because nowadays, unfortunately, on every subject, you’re getting messages which take about two minutes to absorb. And people who just don’t have time to read, they don’t even read newspapers anymore, quite frankly, and that is sad. And that’s-, I’m trying to make sure that my grandkids – my kids are beyond my control, obviously – are insulated from this to some extent and appreciate the better things of life.
SK: And on that final note, would you have any words of advice for our listeners or anybody who might be reading this later on?
MA: I mean, you can’t give advice except in a particular context. I don’t know what advice, in the context of what? But I do think that my main advice, really, is that, you know, a lot of life is guided by immediate goals which are quite important: you know, get a job, earn some money, bring up a family, etc. And all of this is very important, but underneath it all, it’s a good idea to think, ‘What is it that would create a decent society?’ and I think people should think about that, be aware of it, and if you are very lucky and they can actually contribute to it, that’s wonderful. But I think what’s happening now is that there’s not enough thinking on, let’s say, the importance of social and public goods. The whole focus is on private goods, and private goods are important. I’m not recommending an Indian, sort of, ascetic lifestyle. But I think you need some thinking about what kind of a society makes for a happy country.
SK: Okay. Well, on that note, thank you so much, Dr Ahluwalia, for joining me today to record this interview.
MA: Good. Thank you very much.
SK: I’ll just pause this recording.
