Letters: Bhagwati's angst

The seemingly theoretical article on growth and/or expenditure on social infrastructure by Jagdish Bhagwati ("The Bhagwati-Sen debate: An epitaph," August 9) is nothing but an exercise in spewing venom at his opponent Amartya Sen. At one point Bhagwati wrote that "lascivious photos of his actress daughter are circulating on the internet". Nothing can be more indecent. Where is the relevance of a daughter in a debate on an economic issue? Did anybody ever cite against Mahatma Gandhi the argument that his son was excessively attached to alcohol?

Half the article has been devoted to denouncing everybody who agrees even partly with Sen. He has rubbished Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Kaushik Basu as bureaucrats, P Chidambaram for "not reading his book" and Mahabub Haq as "Amartya's Pakistani friend". Why has he called him Pakistani? Does he refer to Kenneth Arrow as Amartya's American friend?

Bhagwati claims to be the "intellectual father" of the Track I reforms of 1991. Actually they were initiated by the International Monetary Fund with its "22 conditionalities" and by the Raja Chelliah Committee Report. At best, Bhagwati can claim to be the stepfather of these reforms.

Sukumar Mukhopdhyay New Delhi

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