My beloved father Arjun Sengupta passed away on Sunday, September 26, 2010.
He was born in Kolkata, in 1937, into a fun-loving but erudite middle-class joint family. A brilliant student and star debater at the Presidency College, he went on to earn a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the age of 27.
His eclectic but uniformly impressive career included eminent posts such as special secretary to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (1981-1984), executive director and special adviser to the managing director of the IMF (1985-1990), India’s ambassador to the European Union (1990-1993), member secretary of the Planning Commission (1993-1998), and Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, from 2005 until his death.
He was most fulfilled, however, by his term as chairman of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (2005-2009), when his team produced a groundbreaking report which revealed that, despite many years of stellar economic growth, 77 per cent of India’s population lives on less than `20 per day.
His intention was not to deny the value of markets and economic liberalisation, but to question our blind faith in them. Though he was among India’s first market reformers — heading a landmark committee on public enterprise reform in the 1980s — he believed that in a country with as much deprivation as ours, the state must not withdraw from its obligation to help the poor and vulnerable.
In the last five years, my father also attained a major presence on the global stage, as the UN’s independent expert on the right to development. In this forum, he framed poverty and the violation of human rights as a global rather than purely national problems, and offered an empowering message to the world’s downtrodden: that they are entitled, as a matter of justice, to a fair share of their societies’ wealth.
Yet despite his firm views, my father was generous towards his adversaries, and a born contrarian. He loved playing devil’s advocate, and genuinely admired anyone who could engage him in verbal battle. When knocked back in debate or life, he was discouraged for only moments. He couldn’t wait to jump back in the ring, and have another go at persuading his opponents.
Indeed, my father was convinced that intellectual merit and our innate, human concern for justice would ultimately triumph over narrow political play. I often told him he would get much further were he more politically astute. To which he said, with a hearty laugh: “I have already come quite far. I have no regrets.”
It is a testament to his buoyant spirit and ethical approach to living that he easily acquired admirers, from every ideological corner and walk of life. Here was a man who could be neither bullied nor bought. It was difficult to not notice him.
I shall remember my father as a strong, principled and self-made man, a visionary and true egalitarian. Though he indulged me with his love, he taught me the value of earned achievement, and forbade me, very categorically, from using his position and privilege for personal advantage. This was infuriating at times, like when he was at the Prime Minister’s Office, and insisted that I ride the rickety bus to school like everyone else. It is only later that I understood the beauty and freedom of being confident in one’s skin indebted to no one.
But what is most remarkable about my father is that his finest work is the outcome of a period of deep anxiety and affliction. His death was the result of a long struggle with prostate cancer, diagnosed in 2005. An eternal optimist but intensely private man, he fought his illness valiantly, but quietly, allowing only my mother and I a window into his suffering.
In what we saw, however, there was no bitterness. Towards the end, when pain had darkened his best hours, he would sit on our verandah, watching the rain. He said the unusually heavy Delhi monsoon reminded him of his youth in Kolkata, when, drenched by a sudden downpour, he would rush into the College Street coffee house, the day’s thoroughly-read newspaper covering his head, for hot tea, mishti and adda.
“Life is so beautiful”, he said, “I will miss it.”
Arjun Sengupta was a columnist for The Asian Age
Dr Mitu (Madhura) Sengupta is associate professor of politics at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada