New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday said he had an “excellent” meeting with Economics Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, who has been critical of his government’s economic policies, including demonetisation.
US-based Banerjee, who Union Minister Piyush Goyal described as “Left-leaning”, was last week named this year’s Nobel winner along with wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for their work on alleviating global poverty.
The meeting assumes significance given the economist recently stressed that India was currently on “shaky ground” and “the data currently available does not hold any assurance for economic revival anytime soon”.
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After the meeting, Prime Minister Modi took to Twitter to say India was proud of Banerjee’s accomplishments and commended his passion towards human empowerment.
Excellent meeting with Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee. His passion towards human empowerment is clearly visible. We had a healthy and extensive interaction on various subjects. India is proud of his accomplishments. Wishing him the very best for his future endeavours. pic.twitter.com/SQFTYgXyBX
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 22, 2019
A JNU alumnus, Banerjee said he was “privileged” to meet Modi, who, he said, shared his way of thinking about India. He also said that the prime minister was trying to reform the civil services to make it more responsive.
“This (meeting) was quite unique because one hears about policies but one rarely hears about the thinking behind it. He talked about the way he sees governance in particular and why sometimes maybe the mistrust of the people on the ground colours governance. And how it therefore creates structures of kind of elite control over the governance process (which is) not a responsive government,” Banerjee said.
“To understand the ways in which people’s views need to be taken into account, to expose them more to the reality on the ground… That I think is a very important point for India to have, to create a bureaucracy that actually lives on the ground and gets its stimulus from how life is on the ground and without that we get an unresponsive government,” Banerjee further said, adding, “So thank you, Prime Minister, that was a unique experience for me.”
The meeting comes in the backdrop of a war of words between BJP and Congress leaders over the latter’s NYAY Scheme, which Banerjee had played a key role in conceptualising. Soon after his Nobel win, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had congratulated the MIT professor and also mentioned his work on the scheme.
The comment led to several senior BJP leaders, including union minister Goyal, calling Banerjee “Left-leaning” for supporting the NYAY scheme, which was rejected by the people of India. Goyal, though, maintained that it was a matter of pride that an Indian had won the Nobel prize.
Also read: Economist Abhijit Banerjee is the sixth Nobel winner with a Kolkata connection