I beg to differ, Professor Amartya Sen
As China's experience shows, growth rate is not just a sideshow in the social development debate.
In a recent op-ed in The Hindu , Amartya Sen has clarified his views regarding what importance we should assign to growth in the policy discourse . Coming as it does in response to a debate on the Cuts Forum to which I had actively contributed, Sen’s clarification justifies a rejoinder by me. The lively debate on the Cuts Forum had been triggered by a lecture Jagdish Bhagwati had delivered at a joint session of the Parliament on December 2, 2010 and subsequent remarks Sen made on India-China growth comparisons while speaking in New Delhi. Bhagwati , who actively contributed to the Cuts Forum debate, had emphasised in his Parliament lecture the centrality of growth to poverty alleviation firstly as a force that “pulls up” the poor into gainful employment and secondly as a source of revenue to expand anti-poverty programmes.
In contrast, in his New Delhi talk, Sen had argued that the Indian fixation with surpassing China’s rate of economic growth was “very stupid” as a measure of the nation’s advancement (James Lamont in the Financial Times, December 21). He noted, however, that growth was a “positive thing” in the context of social justice, poverty reduction and directing greater revenues towards health and education. In the op-ed , Sen elaborates on these views. He states that growth can be a good thing, denounces growth for its own sake (anon sequitursince no serious analyst advocates growth for its own sake), notes the importance of growth in generating “resources for the government to spend according to its priorities” and characterises as “silly” the focus on growth in India-China comparisons.