C Rangarajan and India's economic reforms

 C Rangarajan was one of the principal figures in the making of India’s economic policies from the 1980s onwards. His memoir, Forks in the Road, should be compulsory reading for those who want a deeper understanding of the reform process.

It will interest IIMA students and alumni to know that Dr Rangarajan was a professor at the Institute for more than a decade and a half. He was at New York University School of Business (now Stern School) when Ravi Matthai, the then director, offered him a job at IIMA.

Dr Rangarajan’s course in Macroeconomics was hugely popular with students. He was entrusted with the task of launching IIMA’s doctoral program. In 1981, he was appointed Deputy Governor of RBI. Thereafter, there was no looking back.

Dr Rangarajan went on to don several hats: Member, Planning Commission; RBI Governor; Chairman, 12^th Finance Commission; Chairman, PM’s Economic Advisory Council. He was also Governor of two states and member, Rajya Sabha. A life of rich accomplishment!

My review article on the book in BS today.

It's behind a pay well, so here is the full text:

FINGER ON THE PULSE

 The ideas of economists

 Former RBI governor C Rangarajan’s memoir is a testament to the crucial role economists can play in shaping policies and people’s lives

T T Ram Mohan

Do economists matter? Can they make a big difference to public policy? Economists will find answers that are gratifying in Forks in the Road, the memoir of C Rangarajan ( ‘Ranga’ to old-timers at IIM Ahmedabad, with which he had a long association in its formative years). Yes, they do. And, yes, they can make a big difference to public policy, provided they can get political masters to align with their thinking. 

Dr Rangarajan’s memoir is about the economic events and decisions in which he was an active participant for nearly three decades, starting in the early 1980s. He wore several hats: Deputy governor and governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI); member of the Planning Commission; chairman of the Twelfth Finance Commission; and chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (with Cabinet rank). Somewhere in between were stints as governor of two states and member of the Rajya Sabha.

Unlike most memoirs, Dr Rangarajan’s is less about himself and more about issues. It is replete with tables and statistics. But it doesn’t just tell us what transpired. It examines the alternatives that were open to policymakers and explains why a particular course was chosen and what outcomes followed. The result is a fascinating piece of economic history. 

Dr Rangarajan joined the RBI in 1981. As deputy governor and governor (with a break in between), he dealt with two of India’s biggest balance of payments (BoP) crises,  the overhaul of monetary policy and banking reform. 

The first BoP crisis, in 1981, was handled largely within the then economic paradigm. Yet, operating  within the paradigm, Dr Rangarajan and his colleagues at the RBI managed a steady depreciation of the rupee in both nominal and real terms. They were very clear that it would be difficult to manage the current account deficit without boosting exports and curtailing imports.  The economists at RBI seem to have had a free hand in managing the exchange rate even before the reforms of 1991. 

Another significant reform in the 1980s arose from the Sukhamoy Chakravarty report of 1985. Following the report, monetary targeting or setting a money supply target consistent with output growth and prices came into vogue. This was the first attempt to tackle “fiscal dominance” over monetary policy. Here again, the political authority went along with the recommendations of the economists. 

The BoP crisis of 1991 required far more drastic measures. An immediate step was the raising of a foreign currency loan by pledging some of our gold reserves. The Chandra Shekhar government gave the go-ahead, and the Narasimha government that followed raised no objection. Again, a steep depreciation in the exchange rate of the rupee was required. This was done in two stages with the approval of the government. Yet another win for economists.

The achievement of the time, as is well known, was the radical break with the past that finance minister Manmohan Singh pushed through. Dr Rangarajan highlights the three significant breaks that are now part of economic lore: The dismantling of licenses, the reduction in public ownership of business enterprises, and the move away from the inward-looking trade policy of the past. All of this was possible only because of the backing of the political authority. Dr Rangarajan notes wryly that Narasimha Rao was able to rally his party behind him by talking of “continuation” in economic policy when there was really a break. At the time, Dr Rangarajan was at the Planning Commission.

Returning to the RBI in the early 1990s, Dr Rangarajan set in motion reforms in monetary policy and banking at a breath-taking pace. The phasing out of ad hoc Treasury bills; market-determined rates for government borrowing; the dismantling of the administered structure of interest rates in banking; the reduction in  the Statutory liquidity ratio and cash reserve ratio; licensing of new private banks; and a great deal more was done. The chapter is titled “The beginnings of autonomy” but  but the freedom given to the professional economists at RBI was not inconsiderable.

In the management of the external sector, the RBI worked closely with the finance ministry. Far-reaching reforms happened: Foreign institutional investors were allowed into the Indian stock market; foreign direct investment (FDI) norms were liberalised; and the exchange rate became largely market-determined. The framework for management of external capital flows was put in place. There was clarity that long-term equity flows should be preferred to short-term debt flows. These and other measures taken at the time have since become pillars of Indian economic policy. 

On all these, the political authority had no difficulty in heeding solid professional advice. There must have been occasions when the economists couldn’t quite have their way. Perhaps those occasions were not so consequential. At any rate, there is little indication in the memoir of any serious confrontation between economists and the government. On the major issues of policy, once the politicians had decided on a fundamental change of course, they didn’t interfere with the work of economists. On lesser, more technical matters, they always left it to the professionals to do what was required.

The big area of failure for economists has been the fiscal deficit or the savings-investment balance. Dr Rangarajan highlights the point in his concluding chapter, “Ruminations”, where he ponders the long-term outlook for the economy. Over the past three decades, it is an issue that has not proved amenable to the persuasions of economists, no matter what the complexion of government. We have since arrived at times when the global consensus on keeping public debt relatively low has been undermined. Economists themselves seem resigned to greater levels of public debt than they have been comfortable with in the past.

Not pushing through “big-bang” reforms— such as aggressive privatisation, including bank privatisation, land acquisition, and the freedom to hire and fire labour — is seen as a big political failure. Dr Rangarajan doesn’t seem to think so.  He makes little mention of these. “The reform regime,” he writes, “will be incremental in character. It has to be”. That is also the political consensus on reforms.  

Working quietly within the system, Dr Rangarajan was able to make a difference. His place as one of the principal architects of economic policy from the 1980s onwards is secure. For his compelling chronicle of the economic history of the period as much for his many contributions, he deserves a bouquet of the choicest roses.

A corporate leader pens a novel

 

Former Ashok Leyland CEO and well-known business leader, R Seshasayee, has a penned a novel, A Dance of Faith. It is an utterly charming work.

The novel is about a Muslim boy in a village in Tamil Nadu who develops an interest in dance while at school. It turns later into an irresistible craving to learn Bharata Natyam. After a great deal of struggle, he finds a teacher in Chennai who is willing to accept him and even help him out financially in his quest.

Seshasayee weaves out of this story-line a tapestry comprising many elements: the conflicts and turmoil in the mind of the Muslim boy as he pursues his quest; family relationships; village life with its many restrictions, prejudices and cruelties; the cultural life of Chennai' and musings about life, religion, art, music and dance. All of this is captured with a deep sense of irony and dashes of humour.

The characters in the novel come alive and their voices are authentic. The reader is left in no doubt as to the literary quality of this debut novel. I particularly liked the Tamil flavor to the novel-  there is a smell of rasam and sambar in the last part.

Two things that struck me were Seshasayee’s grasp of a range of literary techniques and his exquisite turns of phrase. I have known the author for a while now. I must confess I never suspected that he harboured literary talent of such an order.  I have little doubt that his first novel will be acclaimed as a considerable achievement.

 

 

 

Book review: Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of ISI and RAW

 

26/11, the attack on Mumbai by terrorists who came by boat from Pakistan, was widely seen as state-sponsored terrorism. The world was horrified by the loss of lives in a leading city of the world. India went on the diplomatic offensive and had some success in painting Pakistan as a rogue nation.

According to Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, authors of  superbly researched Spy Stories, 26/11 was the work of set of non-state actors who may not have had the sponsorship of the state of Pakistan. (The authors had earlier written an acclaimed book on 26/11, the attack on Mumbai).

The mastermind behind 26/11 was one Pasha, a former officer of the Pakistan military. Pasha had been sent to Afghanistan to fight the Al Qaeda. He refused to fight as he placed “his faith before his country”. He was demoted and he quit the Pakistan Army. He initially joined the Lashkar e Toiba (LeT) and then moved to 313 Brigade, a Kashmiri militant outfit that kept its distance from the ISI, Pakistan’s spy agency.

The authors believe it was Pasha who conceived of the daring idea of a raid across the sea to Mumbai instead of the usual trek across the mountains in Kashmir that militants were used to. The astonishing part of their narrative is this: the CIA had comprehensive details of the 26/11 plot, passed on by David Headley, an American of Pakistani descent. Headley had been a drugs trafficker who had defected to the CIA. The intelligence, the authors say, had been passed on to the Indian authorities. But the authorities failed to act on it.

The authors’ source is Monisha, an officer at RAW, India’s external intelligence agencies. Monisha wonders whether the lapse was intentional. She speculates whether the authorities in India allowed the raid to happen in the knowledge that it would help them paint Pakistan in the darkest of colours and break the cosy relationship between Pakistan and the US.

The authors say that 26/11 did break that relationship. It also forced on Pakistan the realisation that terrorism in Pakistan, if not reined in, would cause the collapse of the state. There followed a crackdown on a unit in ISI which was seek as creating trouble. Hafiz Saeed, the LeT chief, came to be placed under house arrest. Monisha, for her part, is disillusioned with the way India’s intelligence agencies are functioning and emigrates to the US.

26/11 is just one of many episodes in a riveting book. Parts of it seem like something out of a Robert Ludlum novel or even from Mission Impossible. The authors have talked to numerous individuals connected with the two agencies (in India, they had access to NSA Ajit Doval). One wonders about the risks the authors took in doing the book.

Apart from Monisha, another individual figures prominently, Major Iftikhar, an ex-operative of ISI who is on the run from his own country’s agencies and can be reached only in complicated ways.  The cast includes numerous militants and agents, some of whom are double agents.

In Kashmir, it is hard to tell who is working for whom. Militants turn law enforcers. Some law enforcers turn renegade. The ISI passes on information to Indian agencies about some of its former assets who have now become a headache for it. The Indian agencies make short of them. It is a crazy world, one in which accountability and the rule of law is notably absent.

After 9/11 and until 26/11 dynamited the relationship between Pakistan and the US, the two had been very intimate indeed. After 9/11, the US sought two important favours from Pakistan. One was the use of Pakistan’s air bases and air space for sending its drones across the border into Afghanistan to eliminate America’s enemies and for housing its Special Forces.  Another was information on various terrorists it was trying to hunt down and who were using Pakistan as a safe haven. The US paid generously for these services. By 2004, Pakistan was making $4.7 bn for its services. It used the money to improve its defence infrastructure and to beef up the operations of the ISI.

The authors have their own take on the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. India, they say, was quick to seize the opportunity to portray Pakistan in the worst possible light. They suggest that the “evidence” gathered in the case was cooked up. They write, “A special cell of Delhi Police officers with a reputation for staging fake encounters worked in record time, recovering mobile phones, SIM cards, receipts, and scribbled-down phone numbers- apparently left lying on the ground, critical identification brought on to a clandestine raid and then left undamaged after it”. The investigation was led by an officer, Rajbir Singh, notorious for fake encounters and with a distinctly shady past in the police force.

Two individuals who were incriminated were cousins Shaukat and Afzal Guru. Police claimed that the two had been intercepted while driving back to Kashmir. In their vehicle, investigators said, were recovered laptops, templates for counterfeit passes to enter Parliament and fake identity cards. Afzal Guru was said to have brought the terrorists to Delhi. Shaukat and Afzal gave the court signed statements saying that Jaish e Mohammed, the Pakistani terrorists organisation, had ordered the attack.

The authors say that Afzal Guru brought the terrorists to Delhi at the bidding of a police officer in Kashmir, Davinder Singh. The courts did not think it necessary to probe Singh’s role or his murky background. Singh was arrested in 2020 when found escorting a Hijbul Mujahideen Deputy Commander in a car in Kashmir. Singh was accused of “waging war on India”. Afzal Guru was hanged. But Western analysts and intelligence agencies, the authors say, remained sceptical of the official version on the Parliament attack. Pakistan, for its part, decided to crackdown on Jaish, believing that it had been infiltrated by RAW and IB! Talk of wheels within twisted wheels.

There is more in this vein in the book. What you hear or are told by the law enforcement agencies or the media often bears little relation to the reality. It is hard to tell who is friend or foe and whether an incident has been engineered by the intelligence agencies or not. It is best that read the book yourself and get a flavour of the diabolical games that underlie the official version of events that make newspaper headlines.

 

 

Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar

 Chandra Shekhar served as PM for seven months between November 1990 to June 1991. He split from the Janata Party and formed the Janata Party (Socialist) as he was never reconciled to V P Singh as PM. His party comprising 64 MPs was propped up by the Congress party headed by Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv toppled him when he found that Chandra Shekhar would not accommodate his wishes beyond a point and also because he was afraid that Chandra Shekhar, an ex- Congressman with friends across political parties, might win over people from the Congress.

Many people see him as a rank opportunist, a man who had no qualms about sinking the Janata Party in order to satisfy his ambition to become PM. They overlook the fact that Chandra Shekhar did not occupy any government office until he became PM, a remarkable achievement, especially given the fact that Narendra Modi's becoming PM straight after having been CM - and without any experience at the Centre- is today thought remarkable.

Roderick Matthews has produced a sympathetic biography, Chandra Shekhar and the six months that saved India. The title may appear melodramatic but Chandra Shekhar did take the crucial decision to borrow against gold in order to prevent a default on India's external obligations. (It wasn't sale of gold, as many think- India pledged gold to the Union Bank of Switzerland and then to the Bank of England and took foreign currency loans against gold. ). Matthews also makes the point that Chandra Shekhar had to deal with separatist crises in Kashmir, Punjab and Assam  and was successful in putting a lid on the latter two. 

Chandra Shekhar was a member of the Praja Socialist Party (PSP) which had split from the Congress and included the likes of Acharya Narendra Dev, Ashoka Mehta, Jayaprakash Narayan and Rammanohar Lohia. Later, the PSP split, with Lohia and a few other leaders walking out of it. Ashoka Mehta led some of his followers back into the Congress. Chandra Shekhar was one of them. He was noted for his rebellious streak and earned the title of 'Young Turk'. He refused several ministerial offers while in the Congress. It's a measure of his independence that Indira Gandhi chose to throw him in jail during the Emergency.

There's no question that Chandra Shekhar was a man of great talent. He was a gifted speaker- he speech at a Saarc summit when he was PM was made extempore. He once spoke on agricultural policy for one and a half hours without a piece of paper in hand. As PM, he impressed bureaucrats with his capacity for hard work, courtesy, decisiveness, preference for consultation and persuasion in  all matters and his enormous respect for institutions. The BBC called him India's greatest PM since Nehru!

Matthews tells us that Chandra Shekhar  was very clear that the Ayodhya dispute could be resolved only through negotiations and that it wasn't a matter that could be resolved by the courts. According to Matthews, Chandra Shekhar was close to clinching a solution. This involved the Muslims surrendering the disuted site to the Hindus while being compensated with land elsewhere in Ayodhya and a promise that no other temple issue would be re-opened. This is a remarkable disclosure considering that that is how the issue has finally been settled.

Chandra Shekhar laid no claim to be a saint or even being free from corruption. He was frank enough to accept that the the political machine is greased by tainted money and that if he wanted to be in politics, he had to live with the fact. In politics, such frankness is not appreciated. You need to be a hypocrite. Chandra Shekhar's image was badly dented by his open association with a coal Mafia don in Bihar and with godman Chandra Swami.

Matthews book provides plenty of background on the crucial political and economic issues in Chandra Shekhar's time. However, he has little to document by way of Chandra Shekhar's concrete achievements, given that his subject had little opportunity to demonstrate his remarkable talents. 

This biography is a useful reminder that India does not lack political talent. Those who rise to the top in Indian politics have the leadership and administrative qualities needed to steer the country. People fret about our corrupt and bungling politicians. Matthews book drives home the point that the nation is safe in their hands.

My latest book, Rebels with a Cause, is out

Happy to share that my latest book, Rebels With A Cause: Famous Dissenters And Why They Are Not Being Heard, is out. It's published by PenguinRandomHouse.

 

I reproduce the blurb:

Democratic societies take pride in freedom of expression. Indeed, the right to dissent and tolerance of diverse viewpoints distinguish a democratic society from a dictatorship. In his new book, Prof. TT Ram Mohan profiles well-known dissenters Arundhati Roy, Oliver Stone, Kancha Ilaiah, David Irving, Yanis Varoufakis, U.G. Krishnamurti and John Pilger to illustrate how, in practice,  dissent tends to be severely circumscribed.  It is only the celebrity status of these dissenters that has kept them from being actively harmed. Through an exploration of the lives and ideas of these personalities , the author argues that, while one may not agree with their positions on various issues, their views merit discussion and debate. Engaging with them and responding to their analyses holds out the prospect for substantive reform within the system. Yet, the dominant elites prefer not to do so, instead marginalizing and even ostracizing dissenters precisely because they find change of any sort threatening.

 Rebels with a Cause is book that asks hard questions to challenge the way we view, and live in, the world—an important book for anyone who refuses to lamely accept the status quo.

 

 

EPW reviews my book on banking crises

EPW carries a review of my latest book, Towards a safer world of banking: bank regulation after the sub-prime crisis, by Sabri Oncu, a well-known scholar and financial economist.

Business Standard reviews my book on bank regulation

BS carries a review today of my book, Towards a safer world of banking: bank regulation after the sub-prime crisis

Options on the future of banking
Book review of 'Towards a Safer World of Banking'
Udit Misra July 04, 2017 Last Updated at 22:41 IST
Towards a Safer World of Banking
Bank Regulations after the Subprime Crisis
T T Ram Mohan
Business Expert Press
149 pages; Rs 2,396

Towards a Safer World of Banking by T T Ram Mohan, who is a professor of finance and economics at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, is a nifty little book aimed at students of business management and bank executives. It makes sense to take a relook at the world of banking since it is almost a decade since some of the biggest banks in the financial world such as the Bank of America, the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Citigroup as well investments banks such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers either failed or nearly did. Since then, governments and taxpayers have been bailing out the troubled banks in the hope that doing so would be, in the long run, cheaper than the cost of letting such entities sink. But this process has been arduous, with massive and unsavoury political and social repercussions. Not surprisingly, there is considerable interest in ensuring that
such a contagion does not recur. This book, then, is an appropriate read for anyone wanting to understand whether we have done enough to ensure that.

The book is divided into five chapters. In the first two, the author discusses the financial and banking crisis that started in 2007 and the causes for the subprime crisis. Now, there is no dearth of reasons advanced for the meltdown. In fact, depending on who you might have read and what you do for a living, you could choose from the long list of causes and not be entirely wrong. This is known as the “MurderontheOrientExpress” theory of the crisis. But therein lies a problem. Unless one can zero in on the exact problem you cannot even begin to provide a lasting policy solution. So the author helps the reader tussle with questions such as: Does an economic contraction cause a banking crisis or the other way round?

Similarly, the author analyses each of the 12 broad reasons given for the subprime crisis, such as the existence of  a housing bubble in the US and elsewhere, loose monetary policies, greedy consumers, excessive financialisation or the global macroeconomic imbalances, to name a few. But many of these factors existed in the past and in other places without causing a global crisis. For instance, there have been periods of low and falling interest rates or instances of housing bubbles in several other countries. In the end, though, the author settles for “regulatory failure” as the principal culprit. According to him, there were “serious failures in relation to banks” such as lowering of loan writing standards, a focus on trading income by holding securitised assets and low amount of equity capital in relation to assets and so on. The author takes into account the analysis by Atif Mian and Amir Sufi in their book, A House of Debt, which gives primacy to the excessive buildup of
private debt. But Professor Mohan Ram argues that this, too, only shows that the ambit of regulation should have been much broader.

The third chapter focusses on regulatory reforms since the crisis. Much has been done, from increased capital  requirements and far more stringent norms for liquidity to tighter norms for securitisation and macroprudential regulations. This has yielded results. As of 2015, in the US, for instance, the top five banks had a common equity Tier 1 ratio that was higher than that specified by Basel III and all but one bank surpassed higher  requirements imposed by the US Federal Reserve. There have been similar improvements in the Europe as well. And yet, chapter four argues, not enough has been done to deal with the key problem that still exists: Banks being too big to fail. There is growing concentration in the banking sector, which, in turn, makes the whole sector more vulnerable.

Chapter five is about solutions. The author is among those who thinks that radical and outofthebox
ideas are needed to disasterproof the banking system. Some of the ideas discussed include the “sharedresponsibility mortgages” proposed by Messrs Mian and Sufi. In such a mortgage, the lender offers downside protection to the borrower while the borrower agrees to give 5 per cent capital gain to the lender on the upside. Also discussed is the chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking Adair Turner’s even more radical suggestion to limit the amount of debt creation itself.

But perhaps the most unusual solution is the one proposed by the author: India’s experience with public sector banks (PSBs). These last 10 pages of the book are likely to elicit far more interest among the Indian readers who  are at present witnessing an embarrassing bloodletting in India’s PSBs. The author argues that the Indian experience, where PSBs account for 70 per cent of the banking system, as well as the Chinese setup, where similar entities account for 90 per cent of the system, are responsible for these countries being the world’s fastest growing economies.

But it is all too clear that Indian PSBs are holding back growth instead of delivering it. The author offers a spirited defence for the PSB functioning — but stops at 2013-14. That is exactly the point at which the problems starting showing up. The author’s argument that PSBs’ troubles in the past two or three years are the result of structural failings of a developing country (such as the lack of a well developed bond market) is not entirely convincing. The truth is that the deep rot in Indian PSBs highlights the risks associated with government ownership of banks.

New perspective on the Great Calcutta killings of 1946

Calcutta (as the city was then called) descended into an orgy of what has been perceived as communal riots in 1946. The killings were seen as an important factor that made Partition inevitable- it seemed to suggest that Hindus and Muslims would find it difficult to live together in one country.

It was fascinating, therefore, to get a quite different perspective on the killings in a book on the subject reviewed recently in EPW. The author contests the idea that the killings were primarily communal in nature. Rather, he's inclined to give more weight to the famine of 1943 inflicted - that's the right word, as it was entirely avoidable in terms of the supply of and demand for foodgrains- on the city by the British.

The author of the book, the reviewer points out, is of the view that the scorched earth policy pursued by the British following the threatened invasion of Bengal by Japan in World War II was by far the more important factor in fuelling the rights. The British emptied the rural areas of foodgrain stocks to prevent these from falling into Japanese hands. They also destroyed transportation by boats by impounding the boats, again to prevent these from falling into Japanese hands. Both these resulted in an artificial scarcity of foodgrains in the countryside. ( I have read elsewhere that inflated estimates of food output caused the British to export large amounts to support the war in other parts of the world).

Calcutta was treated differently because it was the epicentre of the war effort in the region. Workers had to be fed in order to maintain production for the war, so ration shops were set up to ensure availability of food. The two factors together- scarcity of food in the countryside and relative abundance in Calcutta- caused people to flock to Calcutta putting enormous pressure on those staying in the city for long. It was the battle for territory between those resident in Calcutta for long and the migrants that primarily resulted in riots, the author contends, the riots were not communal in origin.

This communal single-mindedness that Das speaks of in the Great Calcutta Killings, Mukherjee shows, is simply not borne out by the historical record. Instead, the violence was chaotic and driven by a range of factors. First, the fact that British targets came under attack in the bedlam has fallen through the cracks in this rush to prise a communal angle from the violence. On Chowringhee, the Main Street of White Calcutta, several European shops and business were plundered, as was an Enfield motorcycle showroom on Park Street. The Statesman House, which housed the main newspaper of White Calcutta, also came under attack but was saved by prompt police action. In Dharamtolla, a Bata showroom, a Czech company, was similarly saved from the mob by the police.

Does widespread looting—of European and Indian targets—fit the mould of the crowds having a sense of “moral duty”? Again, here the looting has been explained in terms of Hindus looting Muslim shops and vice versa—a theory little backed up by data. In the chaos, very little of who attacked whom was actually recorded. Driven by a concurrent cloth famine, cloth merchants were targeted. And of course, the authorities were wary of food stocks being ransacked, so the civil supplies department was heavily guarded. Given this data, Das’ dismissal of the riot having an economic component falls under heavy strain.

This indeed casts new light not just on the Great Killings but on the Partition that followed. The author also suggests that Bengal PM Suhrawardy has been unfairly maligned. Britian's role in bringing about the Partition of India is far greater than one had thought.

This communal single-mindedness that Das speaks of in the Great Calcutta Killings, Mukherjee shows, is simply not borne out by the historical record. Instead, the violence was chaotic and driven by a range of factors. First, the fact that British targets came under attack in the bedlam has fallen through the cracks in this rush to prise a communal angle from the violence. On Chowringhee, the Main Street of White Calcutta, several European shops and business were plundered, as was an Enfield motorcycle showroom on Park Street. The Statesman House, which housed the main newspaper of White Calcutta, also came under attack but was saved by prompt police action. In Dharamtolla, a Bata showroom, a Czech company, was similarly saved from the mob by the police.
Does widespread looting—of European and Indian targets—fit the mould of the crowds having a sense of “moral duty”? Again, here the looting has been explained in terms of Hindus looting Muslim shops and vice versa—a theory little backed up by data. In the chaos, very little of who attacked whom was actually recorded. Driven by a concurrent cloth famine, cloth merchants were targeted. And of course, the authorities were wary of food stocks being ransacked, so the civil supplies department was heavily guarded. Given this data, Das’ dismissal of the riot having an economic component falls under heavy strain.
- See more at: http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/8/book-reviews/revisiting-our-narratives-great-calcutta-killings.html#sthash.1VAOCo0Y.dpuf

This communal single-mindedness that Das speaks of in the Great Calcutta Killings, Mukherjee shows, is simply not borne out by the historical record. Instead, the violence was chaotic and driven by a range of factors. First, the fact that British targets came under attack in the bedlam has fallen through the cracks in this rush to prise a communal angle from the violence. On Chowringhee, the Main Street of White Calcutta, several European shops and business were plundered, as was an Enfield motorcycle showroom on Park Street. The Statesman House, which housed the main newspaper of White Calcutta, also came under attack but was saved by prompt police action. In Dharamtolla, a Bata showroom, a Czech company, was similarly saved from the mob by the police.
Does widespread looting—of European and Indian targets—fit the mould of the crowds having a sense of “moral duty”? Again, here the looting has been explained in terms of Hindus looting Muslim shops and vice versa—a theory little backed up by data. In the chaos, very little of who attacked whom was actually recorded. Driven by a concurrent cloth famine, cloth merchants were targeted. And of course, the authorities were wary of food stocks being ransacked, so the civil supplies department was heavily guarded. Given this data, Das’ dismissal of the riot having an economic component falls under heavy strain.
- See more at: http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/8/book-reviews/revisiting-our-narratives-great-calcutta-killings.html#sthash.1VAOCo0Y.dpuf

This communal single-mindedness that Das speaks of in the Great Calcutta Killings, Mukherjee shows, is simply not borne out by the historical record. Instead, the violence was chaotic and driven by a range of factors. First, the fact that British targets came under attack in the bedlam has fallen through the cracks in this rush to prise a communal angle from the violence. On Chowringhee, the Main Street of White Calcutta, several European shops and business were plundered, as was an Enfield motorcycle showroom on Park Street. The Statesman House, which housed the main newspaper of White Calcutta, also came under attack but was saved by prompt police action. In Dharamtolla, a Bata showroom, a Czech company, was similarly saved from the mob by the police.
Does widespread looting—of European and Indian targets—fit the mould of the crowds having a sense of “moral duty”? Again, here the looting has been explained in terms of Hindus looting Muslim shops and vice versa—a theory little backed up by data. In the chaos, very little of who attacked whom was actually recorded. Driven by a concurrent cloth famine, cloth merchants were targeted. And of course, the authorities were wary of food stocks being ransacked, so the civil supplies department was heavily guarded. Given this data, Das’ dismissal of the riot having an economic component falls under heavy strain.
- See more at: http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/8/book-reviews/revisiting-our-narratives-great-calcutta-killings.html#sthash.1VAOCo0Y.dpuf

This communal single-mindedness that Das speaks of in the Great Calcutta Killings, Mukherjee shows, is simply not borne out by the historical record. Instead, the violence was chaotic and driven by a range of factors. First, the fact that British targets came under attack in the bedlam has fallen through the cracks in this rush to prise a communal angle from the violence. On Chowringhee, the Main Street of White Calcutta, several European shops and business were plundered, as was an Enfield motorcycle showroom on Park Street. The Statesman House, which housed the main newspaper of White Calcutta, also came under attack but was saved by prompt police action. In Dharamtolla, a Bata showroom, a Czech company, was similarly saved from the mob by the police.
Does widespread looting—of European and Indian targets—fit the mould of the crowds having a sense of “moral duty”? Again, here the looting has been explained in terms of Hindus looting Muslim shops and vice versa—a theory little backed up by data. In the chaos, very little of who attacked whom was actually recorded. Driven by a concurrent cloth famine, cloth merchants were targeted. And of course, the authorities were wary of food stocks being ransacked, so the civil supplies department was heavily guarded. Given this data, Das’ dismissal of the riot having an economic component falls under heavy strain.
- See more at: http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/8/book-reviews/revisiting-our-narratives-great-calcutta-killings.html#sthash.1VAOCo0Y.dpuf