'Lahiri's law': A mathematical analysis of social divisions

Ashok Lahiri's book is a collection of thoughtful observations on India's economic journey since 1947, spiced up with views on our society and its politics

Ashok Lahiri is an old friend whom I have known since 1971 when he came to the Delhi School of Economics from Presidency College, Calcutta, the incubator for top-level economists.

At D-School in the final year Lahiri opted for the much-dreaded E-group, which involved taking six papers in econometrics. It was taught by very exacting professors with international reputations. It wasn’t a course for the faint-hearted.

It is, therefore, not surprising that Lahiri has a mile long list of achievements. Chief Economic Adviser; Director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; Member, 15th Finance Commission; International Monetary Fund; Asian Development Bank; Chairman, Bandhan Bank. You name it. He’s been there, done that.

He’s even been elected a member of the Bengal legislature. Had the Bharatiya Janata Party won there, he may well have become its finance minister. Bengal has had some distinguished economists in that job, all of whose names start with A — Ashok Mitra, Ashim Dasgupta and Amit Mitra.

But you know what? You haven’t really made it until you have written a book. So in a fit of masochism, for that’s what book writing is, he has now written a very fat book called India in Search of Glory: Political Calculus and Economy.

The book is fully three inches thick and weighs about a kilogram. It has 800 pages and costs Rs 1,500. The title is a bit off putting but, as they say, don’t judge a book by its cover.

But I must nitpick over the 42 pages that are called bibliography. They are actually references plus bibliography. There are also 10 pages of abbreviations and around 50 charts and graphs.

Fortunately, it is a very good book. I have managed to read much of it. It has short, sharp sections into which you can dip from time to time.

Economists aren’t very good at writing but Lahiri has done a really good job of selection and organisation of the matter. He also writes clearly. And despite his current political affiliation, he has chosen a clinical style. There’s none of that wasted 70 years stuff. But it’s clear where his arguments lead.

The ‘political calculus’:  This is, thus, a collection of thoughtful observations on India’s economic journey since 1947, spiced up with views on our society and its politics. Given his inclinations and vast Indian and global exposure, Lahiri touches on a huge variety of subjects. If it were up to me, I would make it compulsory reading for all undergraduate courses in economics in all universities because, he says, “This book is an attempt to decipher improvements in the political calculus…for democracy to start yielding better dividends…”.

Democracy, however, means politics. Politics means divisions. So I was particularly interested in Lahiri’s views on religion, politics and economics. He hasn’t shied away from the topic but perhaps mindful of his peer group, he tiptoes around the subject. This is what he says:

“The analysis of the underlying forces at work like secularism, urbanisation, literacy, Sanskritisation, Hindutva politics, strict adherence to Islamic scriptures is beyond the scope of this book. What we offer instead is a hypothesis that while blurring of caste is a welcome development, one of its possible temporary fallouts may have been an elevated risk of Hindu-Muslim conflicts.”

Possible. Temporary. May. Ouch!

Lahiri’s Law: He then wanders off into a mathematical analysis of social divisions and their political consequences. He even talks of an “index of polarisation”. The conclusion which we can call Lahiri’s Law is this:

“Consolidation of groups (castes) with more than two-thirds of the population reduces polarisation; such consolidation for groups with total size less than two-thirds increases it”.

The logic is that a “consolidated group that is ‘too large’ relative to the others may feel greatly reassured of its pre-eminence while a consolidated group that is not ‘too large’ may feel greater need and capacity of assertion”.

That is, if caste is eliminated and Hindus become a large homogeneous group, they will stop fearing the Muslims and the Muslims will stop fearing the Hindus. Something like that, I think.

But prevarication aside, this is a very interesting idea. Caste must go but the resulting Hindu consolidation must reach at least 67 per cent. Until then the minorities should watch out.

Lahiri explains the contradiction between caste consolidation and the slow rate of decline in riots. The answer, he says, lies in the “critical threshold of two-thirds”. Until that happens, things will not get better. “Polarisation will go down only after 67 per cent or more of the population amongst the Hindus are consolidated into a single category.”