Teachings of Prof S Ambirajan: “Clout intact by pandering”

When I was a student of undergraduate in Economics at Gurunanak College, in Chennai I heard Prof S Ambirajan’s writings but never gave thought, after all we were students! Infact one of my teacher who taught me was PhD student under the Supervision of Prof Ambirajan when he was the head of Economics Department in University of Madras.

But over a period of time he has been a forgotten man within me, though often I use to search who are all counted as liberals in India.

Many thanks to Sauvik for giving me Prof Ambirajan’s book “Classical Political Economy And British Policy In India” this book was published as Series of Cambridge South Asian Studies.

I’m enjoying reading, it has great ideas infact the following excerpts will help you to imagine some extant on his understanding.

Excerpts from his article published in The Hindu in 2001:

• “India attained freedom: ``since the Indianisation of the Viceroy's Council, the once prized efficiency of the ICS and the Government, at any rate of the administrative side, has largely disappeared……. there is adequate evidence of the steady decline in the efficiency of governance now when the entire administrative system is unquestionably Indian.
• Public expenditure by itself is not harmful and is actually necessary. However it has damaging consequences depending on what is spent and how, and where the revenue is generated. The ripple effect of public expenditure can affect the economy's performance by destroying the productive and encouraging the wasteful elements of the governing system.
• The remedy should rest in leaving as little as possible of the nation's resources in the hands of our ruling class.
• Take for example the Human Resources Development Ministry which is one of the most bloated spending Ministries of the Central Government. The work of the Ministry of Education since its beginning has been incredibly dismal. In spite of the goal set by our founding fathers in our Constitution that all children will be provided free and compulsory education till the age of 14, after more than five decades, India has more illiterates than the total Indian population in 1947. In every area where the Ministry's footprints are seen - secondary education, higher education, scientific research, technical education, distant education, and so one can only notice colossal failure. It can be safely concluded that in its main job of widening the knowledge base in the country, the Ministry has achieved little.
• If the vast monies poured into the Ministry did nothing to create a well educated India, what has it achieved? The agenda of the Ministry of Education (later christened Ministry of Human Resource Development) seems to be purely decorative, and it has always exerted itself to build a powerful empire to dispense favours. In the name of preserving culture and encouraging higher scholarship, numerous departments, centres, commissions, academies, councils, and institutes have been created to accommodate ideological positions and favoured individuals not to mention developing personality cults. Most of these institutions have evolved into self-perpetuating parasitical bodies, and the Ministry itself by ruthlessly acquiring control over educational funding has erected a highly centralised system. The Ministry's function is like the Mughal Mansabdari system where fiefs were created for favoured courtiers. The history of the Ministry seems nothing but a history of the constant struggle among coteries and groups to capture positions of power. And the Ministers who preside over this vast incubus have always played the game of favourites. It was religion as in the case of the first Minister, Abul Kalam Azad, who packed the Ministry with Muslims provoking a commentator in the irreverent Shankar's Weekly to define the Ministry as ``Pan-Islamic Brotherhood''! Narasimha Rao and Bommai preferred people from their regions for key appointments. The two professor Ministers, Nurul Hasan and M. M. Joshi, stuck to ideological soul mates for heading fiefdoms under their control, Marxists and Hindutvawadis respectively. Mr. Geethakrishnan, the Ministry of HRD is ready for your attention!”

Indeed, I am very much excited to say that I have got another great paper of Prof Ambirajan which he wrote in 1997 this paper was in B.B. Price edited book “Ancient Economic Thought”.

Actually I have collected a bunch of papers/article by Prof Ambirajan.

All I can say is thanks to Sauvik for his giving me Prof Ambirajan book.