Bibek Debroy, EAC-PM chief, passes away at 69 due to prolonged illness

Debroy was a member of NITI Aayog up to June 5, 2019. In September 2017, he was appointed Chairman of the EAC-PM

Bibek Debroy, who contributed to the economic policies of the Narendra Modi government, passed away on Friday morning aged 69 after a prolonged illness. He held the post of chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) till the end. However, he was involved in the policymaking of earlier governments too, though not to the same extent. A Padma Shri awardee for his literary and academic contributions, Debroy, born in 1955, received his education at Ramakrishna Mission School, Narendrapur; Presidency College, Kolkata (now Presidency University); Delhi School of Economics; and Trinity College, Cambridge.

 

Debroy was a member of the NITI Aayog up to June 5, 2019. In September 2017, he was appointed chairman of the EAC-PM.

 

Debroy had a wide canvas -- penning books and articles ranging from economics to translations of Hindu scriptures. 

The versatility is self-explaining when one goes through his works -- Great Epics of India: Purana (1991), Foreign Trade Policy Changes and Devaluation (1992), Vishnu Purana (1992), Beyond the Uruguay Round: The Indian Perspective on GATT (1996), External Trade (1998), In the Dock: Absurdities of Indian Law (2000), Indian Economy on a Fast Track (2004), The Holy Vedas (2006), Sarama and Her Children: The Dog in Indian Myth (2008), Mahabharata (2010), Economic Freedom of the States of India (2011), Corruption in India: The DNA and the RNA (2012), Indian Railways (2017), The Valmiki Ramayana (2017), The Book of Limericks (2018) and many more.

 

After Debroy took charge of his last job, a journalist visited him for an interaction. He wrote Debroy’s desk was embellished with copies of the Gita, Ramayana, Vedas, etc, hinting that he had changed his world outlook after he was given the coveted office by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. Debroy later told a group of journalists this was a mistaken assessment. He has been writing books on Indian mythology since at least 1991, as cited above.

 

However, the economist courted controversy when he resigned as director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, promoted by the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, in 2005. Debroy made the move after a research paper put out by the institute rated Gujarat as the number one state in India in terms of providing economic freedom.

 

“I got a note from Mrs (Sonia) Gandhi saying anything that the Rajiv Gandhi Institute publishes henceforth be politically vetted. I resigned,” Debroy said in an interview many years later.

 

Not to stir a controversy again, Debroy resigned as chancellor of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, in September following the reinstatement of Vice-Chancellor Ajit Ranade by the Bombay High Court.

 

Debroy defended the NDA government when it was attacked by economists, including former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian, for supposed loopholes in a methodology to calculate gross domestic product (GDP).

 

His defence of the government did not end here. When the Modi government was attacked for allegedly spreading intolerance, Debroy took on the earlier governments for not tolerating dissent, at least in economic thinking.  

 

“Jagdish Bhagwati was essentially made to leave the Delhi School of Economics and had to go abroad because his life was made very uncomfortable ... I cited these examples to drive home the point that intolerance has always existed and we will be stupid if we haven’t recognised it,” Debroy said in an interview.

 

Call it a coincidence, or a premonition, or an inkling, Debroy sent a piece to the Indian Express four days before he passed away with a note: “Unusual Column. Short of a requiem”.

 

“As time goes, a month is fleeting. But being virtually wiped off the face of the earth is not... There is a world outside that exists. What if I am not there? What indeed?” he wrote in this column, published by the Indian Express online on Friday.