Jailing a rich man is drain on public exchequer: Bibek Debroy

Imprisoning a rich man for his crime is a drain on the public exchequer, said professor Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and Member, NITI Aayog while addressing students of MICA on Wednesday. As part of Debroy's lecture titled ' Why Read the Epics? And Governance Lessons from Mahabharata and The Ramayana,' a part of MICA's Leadership series, he not only spoke about various points that are still relevant in our society, but also about governance lessons.

Speaking about drawing inferences from Mahabharata, he said, "I had mentioned to you about what Bhishma preached to Yudhishthir lying down on the bed of arrows as written in the Shanti Parva and the Anushashna Parva. A rich man should never be imprisoned for his crime. Because if you imprison a rich man for his crime, it is a drain on the public exchequer. Instead you should impose a monetary penalty on him. Only in a relatively poor man who cannot afford to pay should be imprisoned. You can defer with this prescription but you cannot possibly deny that it has an economic rational.

Further speaking about the legacy, he said that the legacy is a three-layer structure that includes the king, the community and an individual. The one word for kind Sanskrit or regional language is Rajan or Nrup. But not every nrup is a rajan. The first rajan as per our texts is Prithu.

Explaining the story of Prithu, he said, "Prithu's father was Vena – a wicked king. He oppressed the subjects, did not punish the wicked, he did not protect the virtuous and therefore, ousted by it, the Brahmanas killed Vena. However, Vena died without having had any sons. There was no obvious person who could be a king then and therefore Brahmans began to knead his right arm and this son was born – named Prithu. He was the first rajan because he set out the rules and levelled the hills. He build cities. He laid out the rules for exploitation of the earth so that overexploitation can be prevented. He created pastures, created areas for agriculture to flourish and created mines. When he did all this, the earth became prithu's daughter – 'Prithvi' – hence the name.

If we look at the depiction of the governance structure, the king was supposed to ensure law and order, external and internal security, judicial process and protection of property rights. We should remember this and rediscover this whenever we expect the government to do many different things.

"We need to rediscover this governance structure. We go to the west and see countries with per capita incomes of $50,000 and what we see here is $1,700 and we expect governments here to do what governments do there. Governments in India lack fiscal capacity and administrative capacity too. Therefore, India will change if all of us recognize there was an alternative model of governance and development. There was a system of government where there was a role for the king, the equivalent of the government and also the role of the community and individuals, he said while addressing students and faculty.

I SAID I AM GOING TO KARNAVATI: DEBROY

• Someone asked me where are you going, I said I am going to Karnavati. The person asked where is Karnavati. I said you haven’t of Karnavati? I then said that I am going to Ahmedabad.
   
• Karnavati may not be physically where exactly Ahmedabad is but Karnavati is what Ahmedabad used to be known earlier. We are completely forgetting it.