The Path to CESP, JNU

This was written when CESP or the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning was getting around to celebrate 50 years of existence. How did I get into the act from the initial stages. What follows are my recollections.

In 1959, I was in Standard IX or as we grandly called it, the Pre-Senior Cambridge Class of St. Xavier’s in Patna and we had an English teacher, who was also our class teacher and would remain so for the last two years of our school. He was a remarkable person, Rev Father James W. Cox, SJ, a Jesuit from the US. He was later to become an Indian citizen but that’s another story. One way that he was remarkable was that he had a collection of paperbacks in his room that he would let his class read. The first time I went up to his room to ask him for a book, I clearly recall I was somewhat nervous and I asked him “ Father, may I have a book to read”. And he laughed this glorious laugh that we became familiar with, “ what else do you do with a book”. And boy did he give me a book. It was Hilaire Belloc’s “ The Path to Rome”. I struggled with the book since I found the English tough; I sat down with a dictionary and struggled through the travelogue of a walking tour which led the author to Rome.  This too is a travelogue, although not quite a walking tour. How I ended up teaching at JNU. In school, it was said that I would do aeronautical engineering, whatever that was.

The journey from school and college and further was interesting but nevertheless, I ended up with a M.A. in Pure Mathematics in Calcutta in 1966. Most of my friends were studying Economics and with my degree in Pure Mathematics, since I had done well, I could have immediately got the job of a UDC (Upper Division Clerk) in Writers’ Building. That provision had appeared much to the general merriment of our class that year. But it was somewhat unappetizing and I later heard through the grapevine that IIM C (the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, to the uninitiated) had advertised for a Research Assistant; there were two positions, one with a background of Mathematics and the other with a background in Statistics to work with the Economics Group at the Institute. I applied for this position since the pay was in the University Lecturer’s grade; but since  I was not sure whether I would get the job, I also wrote to Professor Amartya Sen at the Delhi School of Economics asking whether I would be eligible to enroll myself as a PhD scholar in DU.  Looking back, it is clear now that these were my first steps on my path to JNU. Not perhaps obvious at that stage.

What happened was that I first received an inland letter from Professor Sukhamoy Chakravarty, from Delhi School; he was in charge of the PhD programme then and he had taught me as an undergraduate in the  Economics classes, I had Economics as one of my subjects when I had  studied for an honors degree in Mathematics. He told me that DU regulations would not permit me to enroll for a PhD in Economics since I did not have a MA  degree in Economics and I should apply for the MA programme in Economics first. That did not attract me. IIM C called me for an interview where I had a rather interesting interaction with Paresh Chattopadhyay about Bourbaki and the French school and he advised me to learn French if I wanted to study  Mathematics; and at the interview I would  meet a tall lanky person from ISI, Nagi Reddy his name was and we chatted a bit. He had just completed his MStat from ISI. As luck would have it, we both got the job  and had a rollicking time at the Institute along with Hitesh Ranjan Sanyal, who was a bit older than us, and was working in Art History of Bengal. Not very obvious then that JNU was calling. In fact, there was no JNU then and that would be the state for some more years to come.

While we enjoyed the camaraderie and the atmosphere in the Social Sciences Group; we also enjoyed the friendliness of other faculty members at the Institute. We would travel by a special bus from Gariahat to Sinthee More, where IIM C was located then. The Campus where IIM C was located was next to the Economics Department of Calcutta University and these days that campus is taken over by Rabindra Bharati University. Among the bus fellow travellers, there was Professor Kamini Adhikari of the Behavioural Science group; her husband Dr B.P. Adhikari was the Director at ISI because the famous  Dr C. R. Rao was on leave ( I am not sure about this). In the ISI there was only one Professor  and that was PCM or Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis; everyone else was Dr this or Dr that.  After a year and half, I realized, I was not going anywhere and doubts started creeping in my mind that maybe I should shift back to doing Mathematics. ISI was the best place to study Mathematics, but I didn’t know any mathematicians there. I knew an economist Dr Deb Bose, who had come to IIM C once and asked him for some advice.  As I recall, the conversation that followed stumped me, completely.

It turned out that it was he who wanted to talk with me! He had just returned from the US where he had been just introduced to computers (remember this was around 1967), and was working with a von-Neumann type model and as he knew that I was studying that model, he thought it would be possible to look into the cmputer programs and ISI had computers even then. Actually, I had visited the ISI library to study the original RES paper on the von-Neumann Model and I had needed an introduction to the library which Deb babu had gladly obliged. I had spent three days there just copying out the paper into my notebook to study since there was no Xerox machines too. Anyway Deb Babu had plans that he shared with me of starting a ERU (Economic Research Unit) and he had thought of me and another person, Amit Bhaduri to join. I was overjoyed, here was something that seemed to be interesting. I had met Amit Bhaduri when he joined Presidency Economics Department immediately after his tripos and we had chatted briefly (in Coffee House!). Apparently Deb Babu had put the proposal to Dr Adhikari, who had been wamly supportive of including me. Apparently he had liked what he saw when we had interacted socially and the whole proposal was waiting for Dr Rao’s OK. Deb Babu wanted to know whether I was agreeable; I said that I just need to check with people at IIM C and he just waved that out of consideration and asked what I thought. I just said that I was on. Dr Rao apparently shot the thing down though Deb Babu and B. P. Adhikari had both pitched in and I recall Deb Babu being surprised at Dr Adikari’s strong suport of my entry, even though I had nothing to show except for a good MA in Pure Mathematics and some people thinking well of me. I learnt Dr Rao had told Deb Babu that he should prove himself first. And then he was not quite convinced about the matter of Amit Bhaduri joining the proposed Unit. So that opportunity fizzled out.

So I had to look for something else; it was clear that I did not want to spend more time at IIM C; the Director had spotted me speaking to some people and decided to nominate me to study for PhD in Management in Stanford and being brash, I told him thank you I will go on my own steam so I do not need the Institute’s sponsorship. This riled him enough and he complained to Barun De, the senior professor in Social Sciences, what does the young man think of himself. The Director had missed the point: it was he that I didn’t think much of.

I had been attending Professor Dipak Banerjee’s class on Linear Economic Models; there were three students in the class including myself ( the other two were Asis Banerjee, who later became VC of Calcutta University and Somnath Sen who became Professor at Manchester; if memory serves me right, they were a couple of years junior to me.) I was also writing essays for Dipak Babu, which were not very good. At this stage I was advised to apply for a PhD in Economics to places where I could use my mathematics background to advantage. Two places were chosen for me to apply: Rochester in the US and Essex in the UK. Professor Morishima was still in Essex and of course Professor Mckenzie was in Rochester. Both admitted me but Essex had no money and Rochester gave me a fellowship. The choice was clear.

Three years of hard work and I realized I was close to finishing since I had a couple of papers out in the journals; everyone said that I had done well. I knew that I had just got lucky. Professor T. N. Srinivasan (TN to everyone) turned up at Rochester for a seminar and learnt from Professor McKenzie that I was almost done and would be going back to India. There had been some talk in the department about that decision when I didnt join the cattle show, viz., meetings of the AEA where all graduate students showed up looking for jobs. The department wanted to show me off but I was determined not to allow that; in fact Professor Jones who was in charge of graduate students wanted me to put in an appearance, stick around for a few more years. Anyway I will talk about that on another occasion. TN asked me whether I would be interested in a job at the ISI; Dipankar Dasgupta, a close friend had returned so I naturally was excited about the chance. With his advice, I wrote to Professor Pranab Bardhan enclosing my CV. I also wrote to my mentor my uncle, Tapas Majumdar; he wrote back saying that of course I should seriously consider ISI but there was a new university in Delhi, JNU, coming up and that they had advertsied for jobs in Economics as they wanted to set up a new department of economics and I should apply immediately. I did so. Almost immediately, TN called me up saying that the ISI job was done and I should just await Dr Rao’s letter. I started laughing saying that my past experience was not good. Anyway I think I told him that I will wait.

At Rochester there was a Physics Graduate student, named Abhijit Mukherjee and he stayed in the same block of flats. Our address differed only in our apartment numbers. In a few days, he came to me with a telegram which offered a job at JNU. He asked me whether I had applied for a job at JNU and hearing that I had, handed me the telgram saying that this was probably for me. It was. I received the letter a week later; JNU was willing to pay for our fares back too but the catch was that I had to agree to sign a bond to serve JNU for three years. I told TN about the letter from JNU since the letter from ISI was yet to arrive. TN told me that ISI did not pay fares and in which case I told him sorry TN, I am accepting JNU then. He told me that I should not make such decisions over such matters and I told him that I needed the money since my wife and I were on a meagre fellowship, we just needed some start-up money once we got back. Apparently Dr Rao was somewhere in the US and would be returning soon and the job offer was pukka. Anyway we got back to Delhi; I joined JNU, the ISI letter remained unsigned I learnt; at JNU, I signed the bond, got the money and started to set up house. We couldnt get a flat on campus; we had rented a house in Sarvoday Enclave. It was a hand to mouth existence. A month had gone by when TN and Kirit Parikh hurried into my office in JNU, waving C. R. Rao’s letter; saying come to ISI. But it was too late. I wondered why they had taken the trouble. I had signed the bond and I had to stay for three years at least. I stayed thirty seven odd years till the end of my tenure.

Dr C. R. Rao, 102 years old was very much in the news recently. Clearly, he ensured that I remained in JNU; I did not know any one in the department that I helped initiate when I joined; Amit Bhaduri joined later and I breathed a bit. If either Dr Rao had agreed to Deb babu’s formulation of ERU in 1968 or if he had been around to sign my appointment letter when the decision had been taken, I would have probably not come to JNU. But as you can see, I was destined to work with Amit Bhaduri.

I do not think any one at JNU particularly wanted me to join, but circumstances, Tapas Majumdar telling me about the opportunity and luck or maybe, destiny, saw to it that I did join.