Book Summary: "We Also Make Policy: An Insider's Account of How the Finance Ministry Functions"- Subhash Chandra Garg.
Brief about the Book:
We Also Make Policy is a fly-on-the-wall account of proceedings within the finance ministry. The book talks candidly about controversial decisions from the first tenure of the NDA government, such as the politics of 'minimum support price' to farmers, electoral bonds, recapitalizing of banks, monetizing national assets and the controversial resignation of RBI Governor Urjit Patel, among others.
As the author of three Union Budgets, Subhash Garg also talks about what it takes to put the Budget together: the pressures, the processes, the calculations and, above all, the politics. Economic policy directly impacts how people live, eat, work and spend.
It governs every aspect of life, and finance secretaries are central to how monetary policy is made and implemented. In this book, Subhash Garg in collaboration with HarperCollins Publishers , former economic affairs secretary and finance secretary, tells the inside story of how monetary policy is made, and unmade, at the highest levels in the Government of India.
Book publication date: October 2023.
Brief about the Author:
Subhash Chandra Garg:- As a member of the Indian Administrative Service for more than thirty-six years, Subhash Garg was deeply involved in public administration, the execution of development programmes, managing state-level institutions, making Budgets both at state- and Central-government levels, and policymaking.
He crafted many Budgets as the secretary, of finance secretary of the government of Rajasthan; as the secretary, of economic affairs; and as the finance secretary to the Government of India. He served as the secretary, of economic affairs, for a little over two years, from 2017 to 2019.
After taking voluntary retirement from the IAS in October 2019, he now works as a policy observer, strategist, commentator and writer on important economic and financial policy issues with a focus on economic and fiscal affairs, and policy of India. Garg's first book, The $10 Trillion Dream: The State of the Indian Economy and the Policy Reforms Agenda, was published in February 2022. His second book, Subhash Chandra Garg's Explanation and Commentary on Budget 2022–23, includes the results and outcome of Budget 2021–22 and the implementation of Budget 2022–23 and develops a national standard for analysing and commenting on Central government budgets.
He writes opinion editorials and columns for print and online news magazines and speaks to think tanks, educational institutions and investors regularly. He appears on television channels for discussions on the economy, Budget and other public policy matters as well.
Time Line:
Secretary Ministry of Power - Government of India
Secretary Economic Affairs - Government of India
Executive Director - World Bank
Officer on Special Duty in Dept. of Economic Affairs - Government of India
Pr. Secretary Finance - Government of Rajasthan
Additional & Joint Secretary Cabinet Secretary
Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture - Government of India
Finance & Principal Secretary, Finance - Government of Rajasthan
Principal Consultant - National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi
Director and Joint Secretary, Ministry of Finance - Government of India
We Also Make Policy:- Book Review
Exordium:
A?bureaucrat, sometimes described as a civil servant, is, more often than not, a sophisticated slave of his political masters. Not all are, however, equally supine. Among them, a minority displays a strong spine.
The privileged lot belonging to the elite IAS, who are supposed to hold up the proverbial “steel frame” of the country, are a mixed bunch of the subservient (the majority) and the rebellious (a few).
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Subhash Garg under review may consider himself as belonging to the latter category. Or he may not. One does not know, but the important question is, who or what is he rebelling against? Is it particular individuals or is it the system and its structures?
The?garam masala?in the book written by Subhash Chandra Garg, former Secretary, of the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, who was one of India’s most powerful civil servants, has already been much publicised through extracts published in various media outlets: his breathtaking account of how Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman took an intense dislike to her senior-most bureaucrat in North Block, which eventually led to his early retirement from the civil service; how former Home Secretary R.K. Singh, who later became Union Power Minister, was a socialist of sorts because of his support for public sector corporations in his ministry, or so Garg would have us believe; and, most sensationally, how Prime Minister Narendra Modi compared the then RBI Governor, Urjit Patel—who was unwilling to part with the Central bank’s reserves for use by the allegedly profligate Indian government—to a snake zealously guarding its stash of gold.
Section 1: On Induction as Secretary, Economic Affairs.
Considering the tight ship that the Modi government runs, with a premium on secrecy in policy-making, we shall never get to know if this exercise in other wings of the government is as chaotic and prone to misadventures, as have been outlined by former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg.
The surprisingly frank book by a former bureaucrat narrated in a matter-of-fact tone with no ill-will and still holding Prime Minister Modi in high esteem would rank as among the closest that opens the window into its economic policy-making.
Section 2: Policy Decisions That Ignited Controversies.
PM Modi calling then RBI Governor Urjit Patel a “coiled snake” was the highlight of the book’s sneak preview. But there is a much more detailed account of his run-in with Nirmala Sitharaman that led to his departure from the Finance Ministry, differences with Power Minister RK Singh and a troubled relationship with stand-in FM Piyush Goyal.
Sitharaman, he says, came to the Finance Ministry with a bias against him. In their last confrontation, she claimed that Garg had been calling her names. What follows is a gut-wrenching account of a senior officer made to feel unwanted and small. Garg though takes it on his chin. He also takes in his stride the warnings that the PM had turned cold towards him and that Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal were bitterly complaining about him to the PM.
Garg’s circle of friends in the bureaucracy is certain to shrink; beginning with senior Punjab IAS officer Anurag Agarwal and including then Principal Secretary to the PM Nripendra Mishra, whom he burdens with the responsibility of pushing through the PM Kisan scheme in an interim budget, a morally dubious move, and without firm numbers of farmers in the country because general elections were round the corner. Garg also mentions several who in his view deserved credit and none more than Arun Jaitley.
Section 3: Institutional Issues.
The author punctures the Central government’s myth that it increased the MSP by 150 per cent for all crops. Or that foreign direct investment and e-commerce have been runaway successes. What if the policies, at least the economic ones highlighted by Garg, were not sudden directives from the top and an attempt to fit round pegs in square holes?
The Bill to regulate cryptocurrencies, privatisation, the IL&FS resolution or the much talked about confrontational years with the RBI — much of it is in the public domain. What spices up the incidents this time is that Garg takes the reader into the hallowed rooms on Raisina Hill with a meeting-by-meeting and a note-by-counter-note account of each of the policies framed in his tenure.
If sometimes the build-up, as in the chapter on SEBI or monetisation, appears technical and tedious, perseverance opens a delightful window into the years of the Modi government straddling the 2019 general elections for the reader as well as for RTI enthusiasts.
Section 4: Government Of India Budgets.
Garg's book, of course, offers his version of events. In his book 'Overdraft: Saving the Indian Saver', released in July 2020, Patel focused on tensions surrounding the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, where he said India's fledgling bankruptcy law was deliberately weakened by sowing "disorder" as "the prospect of a transparent, time-bound process on autopilot for recovering debt was unsettling".
In a chapter titled 'The Empire Strikes Back', Patel described the aftermath of the RBI's famous February 12, 2018 circular, which spelt out an amended framework for the resolution of banks' stressed assets, that was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in April 2019.
Section 5: Voluntary Retirement.
A day after Acharya bowed out of the RBI on July 23, 2019, Garg's transfer order to the power ministry was served - less than two months into Nirmala Sitharaman's term as finance minister. But signs that the end was near were visible in early 2019, with Garg sensing Modi had "developed a certain coldness" towards him.
Things could have turned out rather differently. Following Urjit Patel's shock resignation on December 10, 2018, Garg, along with Shaktikanta Das and the then chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Ajay Tyagi, were in the running for the top post at India's central bank.
"In terms of professional abilities and competence, I thought I was qualified to be the RBI governor. However, I also realised that I had been virtually at the forefront of the tussles between the RBI and the government in the past six months. As I was the face of the government, I was quite likely to be persona non grata for RBI management and staff," Garg writes.
Conclusion:
Tell-all memoirs on Indian politics and policy have been in short supply in recent years. Technocrats who have served under the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government have indeed published books on their experiences.
There are a handful of finance secretaries of the Union government who have suffered their tenures being cut short unceremoniously. Subhash Chandra Garg is one of them. In July 2019, he was transferred to the power ministry within days of the Union Budget being presented.
Most of them have been collections of their public talks and documents, with a few updated chapters.
Learning:
The book is about his strained relationship with the new finance minister Nirmala Seetharaman which ultimately led to his transfer from the finance ministry and was the main cause of his seeking voluntary retirement. He had an excellent relationship with the earlier finance minister Mr. Jaitly.
Garg prefaces his book by saying he had?tried?to provide a "true and fair account" in the book.?While those in the government now may or may not have something to say about that,?'We Also Make Policy'?certainly is an insider's account of how the finance ministry functions - from the nuances of key policies such as electoral bonds to bank recapitalisation to the dynamics that provide direction to them.
It is natural that there should be friction among the many people in the government. No big organisation, especially the government, can work smoothly. But not many have noted it with the care that Garg has done in this book. And this is only a small part of what is happening inside the big machine that the government is. What is interesting is that Garg does not point an accusing finger at any of them.
The one peculiarity that emerges from the story of inter-personal relations is that the ministers are seen complaining to the Prime Minister — in this case Goyal and Sitharaman complaining to Modi — and the diktat of the PMO on what should go into the Budget speech. Modi is a hands-on Prime Minister no doubt, and this has been evident through the nine years he has been in power. What was lacking till now is the evidence. Garg has provided some of it.
Subhash Garg & HarperCollins Publishers , HarperCollins Publishers India , HarperCollins Brasil , HarperCollins India & HarperCollins, Gut Check Press, etc.
Get the link to buy this book: https://amzn.to/4chxLFn
Senior Manager at HDFC Bank | MBA, Strategic Leadership
4 个月Get the link to buy this book: https://amzn.to/4chxLFn
Senior Manager at HDFC Bank | MBA, Strategic Leadership
4 个月Reading date: July 2024.
Interesting insights from Subhash Garg on his experiences with the RBI and finance ministers.