Lord Meghnad Desai: Economist, Mahatma Gandhi baiter, Dilip Kumar fan and much more

New Indian Express

a day ago

Lord Meghnad Desai, by his own admission, was a short-term pessimist and a medium-run optimist.
The renowned British Indian economist and House of Lords peer, taught econometrics at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE), and dabbled in developmental economics, macroeconomics and Marxian economics. His multi-disciplinary thinking and commitment to social justice drew Desai into writing on a range of subjects besides economics such as films and even the Bhagavad Gita.
He once casually quipped that his book on Bollywood actor Dilip Kumar -- Nehru's Hero Dilip Kumar -- was his greatest achievement. But as Desai later clarified, the comment was 'mostly facetious,' because he met his second wife Kishwar Desai (former TV personality Kishwar Ahluwalia) while she was editing the book. His first marriage lasted 25 years, from which he has three children.
Desai specialized in teaching Marxist economics and wrote several books including Marxian Economic Theory in 1973 (revised later in 1979), Applied Econometrics, Testing Monetarism, Marxian Economic Theory, Marx's Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the death of Statist Socialism. Some of his other offbeat books include The Rediscovery of India and Who Wrote the Bhagavad Gita. His other academic contributions include over 200 scholarly articles.
Among all the books he wrote, his actual favourite is Marx's Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the death of Statist Socialism, which he termed as a 'globaliser's' book, championing the full freedom of movement of capital, labour, trade and migrants.
The book's central argument was, if it came to a choice between the market and the state to goose the economy, modern libertarians would be as shocked as modern socialists to find Marx on the side of the market.
"If it came to a choice between whether the Market or the State should rule the economy, the modern libertarians would be shocked as much as the modern socialists to find Marx on the side of the Market," he wrote in the book.
Analysing some of Marx's lesser-known writings, he argued that his theories enhance our understanding of modern capitalism and globalization. First, that international trade is good for poor countries, workers have an interest in being exploited by capitalists, as high profits guarantee employment. Third, states are inefficient and markets efficient.
He went to show how, in theory and in argument, Marx was committed to the idea that capitalism has to flower fully if it is to allow the bourgeois class to fulfil its modernising destiny. The book briefly surveyed 150 years of global capitalism and some of its leading thinkers including Adam Smith, Lenin, Schumpeter, Hayek, Polanyi, Keynes and Marx.
Religion rebel
Interestingly, Desai was actively opinionated about religion and pretty often.
In January 2012, delivering a lecture at the Prof Ramlal Parikh Memorial Lecture organised by the Indian Society for Community Education, Desai castigated Gandhi's use of the Gita as it condoned violence and equated the Mahabharata war to a holocaust.
He raised two issues. First about Gandhiji's endorsement of Bhagavad Gita, and his 'admiration' towards Hitler. "How could someone of Gandhiji's intellect make a mistake on Hitler? How could food and drink habits could be mistaken for virtues?" he wondered.
He didn't stop there.
In September 2012, he delivered another lecture at the Nalanda University in Bihar on the same topic, this time titled The Bhagavad Gita: A secular inquiry into a sacred text, which caused quite a stir. He argued that the holy book was not "a suitable text for modern India" and further questioned, "Why are we respecting the text uncritically, which has so many flaws?"
Subsequently, in 2014, he developed it into a book, Who Wrote the Bhagavadgita: A Secular Enquiry into a Sacred Text, as a humanist critique of the sacred text. Desai, himself, confessed multiple times that he wasn't an expert on scriptures and that he was a self-proclaimed atheist. Still, he went on to outline how the Gita reinforces social inequity and lack of concern for others.
Needless to say, Desai's views perplexed critics who concluded that perhaps, Desai found the Gita confusing, and difficult with a scant understanding of the intricacies of Vedic philosophy. They maintained that while Desai may be an intellectual giant in the field of economics, 'he was intellectually bankrupt in the field of Indian philosophy'.
That aside, Desai was not new to controversies. Be it with his sensational remarks that India was never an ancient nation, or attacking the Narendra Modi government for the high-profile exits of the Reserve Bank of India governors, or the "spectacularly foolish" move to get the government's hands on RBI reserves, or spending on "stupidities" like farm loan waivers and so on.
Outside India, he was under the spotlight for dispatching a letter complaining how the Asia House (in the UK) had withdrawn offensively anti-Hindu paintings by MF Hussain. Separately, he found in Labour's crosshairs for his remarks in a TV interview urging the government to impose VAT and bridge the budget deficit.
Prior to that, he created a flutter for his remarks on the Church when he said: "Like my noble friend Lord Dormand I am an atheist and therefore should not speak too much about religion, but I am glad that the Church of England, having lost money in real estate, is now interested in sex and making money. That is always welcome."
In 2003, he landed himself in yet another controversy for admitting dictator Colonel Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, into the London School of Economics. Amid an uproar that that Saif plagarised his PhD, Desai reasoned that the admission wasn't based on parentage but purely based on scholastic merit. But he drew ire for accepting the £1.5 million financial donation from Gaddafi.
Eventually, in 2020, he resigned as a member of the UK's Labour party over its failure to effectively tackle antisemitic racism within its ranks. "I have been very uncomfortable and slightly ashamed that the party has been injected with this sort of racism. Jewish MPs were abused openly, and female members were trolled. It is out and out racism," he said.
He had joined the Labour party in 1971 and was elevated to the House of Lords in June, 1991.
From Baroda to Britain
Desai's journey from Baroda to Britain is rather interesting.
As a kid, his maternal uncle once locked him up in a dark bathroom for 20-30 minutes for being mischievous, and that unmemorable incident influenced his decision to migrate. "...In fact, I would say that I may have rejected the prospect of my staying on in India once I had the chance to go abroad for this very reason," he recalled in an interview.
His journey in the US began at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his PhD in economics in 1963, but it was at the University of California-Berkley that shaped his political leanings decisively towards the Left. It's also where he first met Nobel Laurette Amartya Sen and also participated in various student protests against the Vietnam War and others.
Incidentally, Desai was appointed as a lecturer at LSE in 1965 on the eve of a student rebellion! In 1983, he became a Professor of Economics and went on to head LSE's Development Studies Institute (1990-95) and found and lead LSE Global Governance (1992-2003).
Desai, a Padma Bhushan awardee, taught economics during his prolonged stint at the LSE from 1965 to 2003, saw his research interests on a variety of subjects -- Marxian analysis, applied econometrics, Indian development and reform, poverty, globalisation, and the role of private markets. He founded the Centre for Study of Global Governance at LSE, as well as its Development Studies programme. Importantly, he was one of the creators of the Human Development Index (HDI) -- an inclusive index that quantifies development not by what is to be achieved but by what has been achieved.
After retiring from LSE, in 2015 he collaborated with his former students to set up the Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics (MDAE) in Mumbai.
His passing away at the age of 85 leaves a gaping void in many spheres.