FROM THE TELEGRAPH OF 26 JULY 2005
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THE
ICONIC MOTABHAI
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I.G.
Patel's passing removes an entire generation I looked up to. He was a close
friend of Mahendra, my elder brother, and hence an honorary elder brother
himself; and in a Gujarati family, the elder brother is a sort of demi-god.
That he excelled in every examination he took brought even greater veneration
for him in a family where children were taught to make the best of their
brains.
That
hierarchical bond survived till I was well into my fifties. Then I published My
Economic Affair, in 1994, a collection of policy briefs I had written for
Manmohan Singh while I was in the finance ministry. That, so to speak, opened
IG's eyes. As he said, till then he had only thought of me as a younger
brother; now I had proved I had something more. That compliment meant more to
me than the many encomia that have come my way.
IG's
intellect was daunting; but in my youth, IG's romance made a greater
impression on me. Professor A.K. Dasgupta was fond of young economists; his
small talk was economics, and he made it as interesting as family gossip. He
was India's director at the International Monetary Fund in the early 1950s,
when IG was a bright young point man of the Fund. He fell in love with
Alaknanda, Professor Dasgupta's daughter.
So
began an exemplary partnership of over half a century. Wherever they went,
whether it was Washington, Delhi, London, Bombay or Baroda, Alaknanda made
every place their own where IG's numerous friends and admirers could drop by,
laze around and just be at home. She was as much of an attraction, if not
more. With her one could go beyond economics and affairs of the state, and
talk about music and literature. For while IG looked after the country's
parlous reserves, Bibi learnt Hindustani classical music, and soon collected
an engaging little circle of music-loving friends who gathered together to
listen and chat once in a while. In Delhi in the 1960s, one went only to talk
to Alaknanda, because IG was at the finance ministry from morning till night,
and one was unlikely to see him unless he dropped by to go to the toilet. For
the finance ministry at that time had only the collective toilets built in
the middle of the courtyard in the 1930s, which were too wet and dirty. By
the time I got there, however, N.K. Singh had had a toilet built in a quiet
corner for the select few, so one did not have to clutch one's trousers and
rush home in the middle of an important meeting.
IG
had a great sense of humour. One of the stories I remember is about a
flatmate he had in Washington when he was a bachelor. This man was irascible;
the nicer IG was to him, the more bad-tempered he became. Only later did he
realize why. To propitiate him, IG used to call him Motabhai. In Gujarati it
means elder brother; but in north India, Mota means fat ' which his roommate
happened to be. Only when IG moved to Delhi did he learn what he had got
wrong.
I
have not seen IG at work in meetings and negotiations. But once, when he was
trying to persuade the big donors in Washington to give what at that time
seemed unconscionable amounts of aid to a left-leaning, plan-driven India, an
irritated donor asked him to give him one good reason why they should aid
India. IG said that as a Hindu, he believed in rebirth. They might not, but
they had to admit that there was a 50 per cent chance that he was right, and
that how happy they would be in the next birth depended on what good deeds
they did in the present birth. So giving aid to India was just an insurance
premium against being born in the next birth as an ant or a bear. They gave
him whatever money he was asking for.
When
I came to Delhi in the 1960s, IG was the great fixer, juggling government
finances at the time of the great famine of 1966 and the subsequent
withdrawal of US aid. He was a man of influence, looked up to and sought
after. He was also a great patriot, who had done thankless tasks for the
country through the difficult years of the 1950s and 1960s. So I was
surprised when suddenly, in the 1970s, he quit and went to New York as deputy
administrator of UNDP; it looked to me like going down the ladder.
Only
later did I learn that IG had a running battle with the corrupt ministers
Indira Gandhi had appointed. IG routinely rejected their improper demands.
But then he got worried that his recalcitrance might be bad for Y.B. Chavan,
the finance minister. So he went to Chavan and said that if he wished, IG
would send him all politically sensitive files. Chavan told him to carry on
exactly as he was doing.
After
the 1972 election, Indira Gandhi removed Chavan, and IG lost an upright
minister. Rather than acquiesce in her improprieties, IG accepted the
invitation of Rudolf Peterson, the tough, ruthless banker whom Nixon had
appointed as administrator of UNDP, and went to New York as his deputy. He
helped Peterson reclaim some control on the specialized agencies - FAO,
UNIDO, WHO, etc - and introduced a new arrangement under which the agencies,
instead of implementing programmes, commissioned governments to do so. That
gave governments greater sense of ownership. And since salaries and
perquisites in the governments were much lower than in the agencies, projects
that they implemented cost much less, and the money went further.
IG
would have gone on to the peaks of the international civil service, in the UN
or the Washington sisters. But as luck would have it, Indira Gandhi was
thrown out in the general election of 1977, and Morarji Desai became Prime
Minister of the succeeding Janata Party government. He persuaded IG to come
back and take up governorship of Reserve Bank. IG was a strict and impartial
administrator. When he found the RBI trade union taking improper advantages,
he disciplined it, and dismissed some of its leaders (they were taken back
after Indira Gandhi returned in the 1982 election and IG stepped down).
After
that, IG was non grata with the Gandhi family. But he went
on to become director of London School of Economics. He thought it was the
most challenging job he had done, maintaining the standards of a great school
in a time of a terrible financial squeeze. The tough British Prime Minister,
Margaret Thatcher, was his tormentor. Asked later how he dealt with her, IG
said, 'You can't argue with great leaders, but you can always tell them that
what they are doing is not according to principles they uphold.' That was a
man of principle speaking. I am proud to have known him.
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