Jagdish Bhagwati
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The person
Arvind Panagariya recalls
Arvind Panagariya, April 29, 2024: The Times of India
After a spectacular 65-year-long career as the world’s leading economist, Jagdish Bhagwati will retire this academic year. So, it is an opportune time to pay tribute to him.
Arguably, Bhagwati is the most influential international trade economist of his generation. Paul Samuelson, the first American to win Nobel Prize in Economics, has described his era as the “Age of Bhagwati in international trade”. Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel winner for his work on New Trade Theory, has said that had he been on the Nobel Committee that year, he would have awarded the prize first to his teacher Jagdish Bhagwati for his “really insightful work” on Old Trade Theory.
A polymath, Bhagwati has made seminal contributions to diverse fields, including immigration, climate change, development, and political philosophy.
An architect of institutions
Internationally, Bhagwati helped design World Trade Organisation in his role as economic policy adviser to Arthur Dunkel, then Director General of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Nationally, his policy writings on India influenced and shaped the thinking of almost all economists and policy analysts who contributed to changing the economy’s orientation away from socialism and towards markets.
Beginning with Indira Gandhi, all prime ministers who have served in office a full term or longer have personally known him.
Wide spectrum scholarship
Bhagwati did his bachelor’s in commerce from Sydenham College in Bombay in 1954 and immediately proceeded to do the Tripos at St John’s College, Cambridge University. He then did stints as a visiting scholar at MIT and Nuffield College. In 1960s, he was back in India, spending two years at Indian Statistical Institute and four at Delhi School of Economics. In 1966, he moved to US, where he spent a year at Columbia and then 13 years at MIT. In 1980, he returned to Columbia, where he has been a professor with appointments in economics, law, and international and public affairs.
Bhagwati has written articles in all leading scholarly journals on economics, published books too numerous to count, shaped media debates on the leading economic policy issues of the day, and founded and edited leading economics journals. Several universities have conferred honorary degrees on him.
GOI awarded Bhagwati Padma Vibhushan. Government of Japan has honoured him with Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star. He also has several prizes named after him. Among them is Jagdish Bhagwati Chair in Indian Political Economy, which I am honoured to hold. Columbia thus has a Bhagwati professor and Professor Bhagwati, which frequently leads to some confusion.
Rapier pen
Bhagwati writes with wit, often to the great disadvantage of his opponents. I cannot resist giving at least one example of it to give the reader a taste of it. In 1987, George Soros wrote a book, titled Alchemy of Finance, which Bhagwati reviewed in New Republic. He began the review thus, “Now that Soros has made his fortune, he is eager to tell all. But his aspirations as a writer soar above a simple narrative of his financial dealings. …He wishes to develop a theory that would equally embrace his mundane financial activities and grander themes such as the reform of the international economic system. Success on Wall Street has given Soros the sangfroid, and wealth the wherewithal, to pursue his dream.” Here he turns the knife to administer a devastating blow: “Alas, it prompts the question: Money talks, but can it write?” At 90, Bhagwati retains his quick wit and humour.
Never let go
A model teacher, Bhagwati has no equal as a mentor. Unlike most professors, who support their students at most till they land their first job, he adopts them for life and gives them his fulsome support. The flip side is that the students adore him and have produced as many as six festschrifts celebrating him. At his retirement party this past April 15, after his students, friends and colleagues had paid him one glowing tribute after another, and his turn to speak came, his opening line, delivered with his trademark mischievous smile, was, “I know I should not believe all this, but I do!” He then became sombre, noting, “Life has been good to me and I could not have asked for more.”
