A Trio's Pioneering Work in Liberalizing Indian Economy

This is the TL;DR version of Shreya Narla's Breaking Out and Through: An Essay on India's First Women in Liberal Economics.

Professor Padma Desai's passing yesterday prompted me to discover that three remarkable Indian women scholars: Sudha Shenoy, Isher Judge, and Padma Desai, ignited India’s economic reform.

Prof. Padma Desai was inspired by Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique project, an influential book published in 1963 that explored women's liberation. It argued that women should be able to pursue their own goals and ambitions and not be limited by traditional gender roles. The book had a profound impact on the feminist movement and sparked the second wave of feminism in the United States. At 30, Prof. Padma Desai was elected to the Mont Pelerin Society, an international organization of economists and intellectuals that promotes classical liberalism. Founded in 1947, the society was inaugurated by Nobel-Laureate economist Friedrich Hayek and included economists such as Milton Friedman and George Stigler. Having led the Austrian economic movement for decades, Professor Desai developed a neoclassical view, advocating a short-term economic plan for India, a prudent middle ground in which the status quo of a controlled economy is modified but not completely overhauled—a plan digestible for an Indian polity unwilling to change.

Prof. Sudha Shenoy was influenced by F. A. Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty, which argues for a free market in a democratic society. She criticized the Indian five-year plans, arguing that they failed on every front: low per capita food consumption, declining textile consumption, and 90 percent of homes were one-roomed hovels. According to Prof. Shenoy, when Americans and other "liberals" (statists) criticize something labelled "free enterprise," they think they're criticizing the free market. However, what they consider natural corollaries of the free market are not integral parts of it. They are distortions caused by misguided interventionism, when the state neglects its own duties while doing the duty of other social groups. The statists often take these imbalances and distortions as normal and essential characteristics of the market. She said, and I paraphrase, that statism in East Europe is called communism, in India it is called socialist society, and in the United States, it is called "American free enterprise."

Prof. Isher Judge joined MIT's doctoral program in 1968, studying economics, international trade, and various schools of thought. She argued against excessive controls instrumental in slowing India’s industrial growth since the 1960s. She advocated for reforms in public forums and was part of the delegation to the US.

Desai, Shenoy, and Judge promoted economic liberty at a time when such concepts were not widely accepted in India. The Indian Administrative Service's statutory regulations, coupled with a lack of informal networks, mentoring, and self-promotion tactics, prevented them from liberalizing India in their prime. As nonconformists, they faced many obstacles, yet their scholarship was instrumental in India's 1991 economic reforms, and it remains relevant today as anti-free markets sentiment grows.

Coming from a developing economy, Desai, Shenoy, and Judge represent diversity in liberal economic thought. It's a shame I didn't know about these trailblazers who kicked off India's economic liberalization.

I look forward to reading Prof. Desai's memoir of her transformation from a sheltered upbringing to academic eminence in America.

Source: https://the1991project.com/essays/breaking-out-and-through-essay-indias-first-women-liberal-economics