My Father (The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man)

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In 1946, Baloo Lal Panagariya, then twenty-five years old, arrived in Jaipur to join the editorial staff of the newspaper Lokvani, devoted to exposing the excesses of the British and princely rulers of Rajputana. Though unremarkable in itself, the story behind this event is one of the triumph of human spirit over adversity.

Baloo Lal was born in a remote village in Rajasthan, in a family that could not scrape together two full meals a day. He lost his father at five and mother at fourteen. The villag lacked even a primary school. Yet, thanks to the wisdom and sacrifice of his mother and his own perseverance, he completed his education, went on to serve with distinction as a civil servant in the newly formed state of Rajasthan and, after retirement, wrote the first definitive book on the history of the freedom movement in Rajasthan.

In a very real sense, Baloo Lal's journey from the village of Suwana to the city of Jaipur was a long and arduous one, much more so than that of his own son, decades later from Jaipur to Washington, DC. His success led to more milestones in the next generation, with two of his children being honoured with Padma awards and another with a presidential award.

My Father: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man adds a new dimension to the history of India. It is a reminder that post-independence India was built not just by a handful of leaders working at the top but numerous ordinary citizens who shaped its many contours from below.

Arvind Panagariya is Professor of Economics and Jagdish N. Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He is also Director of the Deepak and Neera Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies at Columbia. He served as the first Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog from January 2015 to August 2017. He holds a PhD in Economics from Princeton University. He is the author of twenty books, among them India Unlimited: Reclaiming the Lost Glory.

The Government of India honoured Dr Panagariya with the Padma Bhushan in 2012.

AS THE TITLE OF the book makes amply clear, this is a I biography of my father, Baloo Lal Panagariya. The question many readers would ask is why they should be interested in it. I can imagine that at least some readers would have an interest in my autobiography, or a memoir by me covering the period of my close association with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But what could possibly be the case for a biography of my father, who retired as a deputy secretary in the Government of Rajasthan in 1976 and was barely known outside his own state? I believe I owe the reader an answer to this question at the outset.

First and foremost, the generation born during the 1920s, to which my father belonged, was a special one. It straddled pre- and post-Independence India in a way like no other. It was too young to be at the forefront of the freedom movement, and yet old enough to be inspired by its foremost leader, Mahatma Gandhi, and to join him in his endeavours. Importantly, it was also a generation that came of age just as India was becoming independent and was thus positioned just right to help build the country post Independence. Born in 1921, my father was twenty-six years old at the time of Independence. Therefore, he witnessed Mahatma Gandhi lead India to independence from the British during the formative years of his life and still had many years ahead of him to help build a new nation. Did he rise to the occasion? I will explore this in my book.

India is a vast country; a few well-known national political figures and handful of distinguished members of the civil service in the central government alone could not have built it. Ultimately, the country was the sum of its constituent states, and each state had to be shaped and built. What role did ordinary citizens like my father play in building their states? In many states, the local political leadership was not fully equipped to govern them. At the same time, the number of officers helping run the state governments was small. Those facts empowered even junior officers to exert influence on outcomes. If they were able and motivated to promote the public interest, as my father was, they could influence outcomes in ways that could contribute to the welfare of many generations to come.

The lives of ordinary citizens can also provide a window to the social, cultural and political ethos of their times. What was life like for ordinary citizens in rural India of the 1920s and 1930s? What opportunities existed for them? How did they relate to the national movement, in which Mahatma Gandhi had tried to involve every Indian in one way or the other?

**Contents and Sample Pages**