The Centre for Social and Economic Progress hosted a seminar titled “Political Ideology and Narratives – With Special Reference to the US Economy” on Thursday, May 29, 2025.

The seminar featured a presentation by Surjit Bhalla, Chairperson of the Technical Expert Group for the first official Household Income Survey for India. This was followed by comments from Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Former Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India & Distinguished Fellow, CSEP. The discussion was moderated by Laveesh Bhandari, President, CSEP. Neeraja Kulkarni, Research Analyst, CSEP gave the welcome address.

About the event

Ideology based narratives are now conventional wisdom. As evidence we provide examples from the Indian economy 2014-present, the recent Indo-Pak conflict, and the US economy (2020-present, especially since Nov. 2024).  These examples document the changing course of discussion and interpretation from one based on fact-check to one based on polarized political views.

Presenter

Surjit S. Bhalla 

Surjit S. Bhalla is Chairperson of the Technical Expert Group for the first official Household Income Survey for India and was Executive Director for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan at the IMF (Nov. 2019-Oct. 2022). He has served as part-time member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s First Economic Advisory Council (2017-18), and has served on several government committees, including Chairperson High-Level Advisory Group on Trade (2018-19) and member, RBI Capital Account Convertibility Committees, 1999 and 2006.

Dr Bhalla has taught at the Delhi School of Economics and served as executive director of the Policy Group in New Delhi, the country’s first non-government funded think tank. He has worked as a research economist at the RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institution, and at both the research and treasury departments of the World Bank, and as a consultant to Warburg Pincus. He has also worked on Wall Street in Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. He was founder-chairman of Oxus Research & Investments 1997-2016; and was Senior India Analyst for the Observatory Group, NY, April 2015-Sept. 2018. He has also been a Contributing Editor for Indian Express (2010-2019).

He is the author of several academic articles, books, and more than 1500 op-eds in national newspapers and magazines.

Books: How we Vote, April, 2024, discusses the role of narratives and fake economic commentary in Indian political discourse; Citizen Raj: Indian Elections 1952-2019 analyzed Indian elections since 1952 and accurately forecast the Modi victory in 2019; The New Wealth of Nations (2017), correctly forecast the changing nature of gender equality in the world via educational attainment; Second Among Equals – The Middle Class Kingdoms of India and China (2007) , defined, developed and estimated the role of the middle class in India, China and the world; Devaluing to Prosperity (2012) examined in detail the role of mercantilism (currency undervaluation) in China’s miracle growth 1990-2010; Imagine There’s no Country (2002), developed and estimated global inequality and poverty trends; Between the Wickets: The Who and Why of the Best in Cricket (1987), developed a model for evaluating performance in sports (cricket).

He holds a PhD and in Economics and MPA from Princeton University, and a BSEE degree from Purdue University.

Discussant

Montek Singh Ahluwalia

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, an economist, and civil servant, was former Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, Government of India. He joined the Government in 1979 as Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance, after which he held a series of positions including Special Secretary to the Prime Minister; Commerce Secretary; Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs; Finance Secretary in the Ministry of Finance; Member of the Planning Commission and Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. In 2001, he was appointed as the first Director of the newly created Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund. He resigned from that position in 2004 to take up the position of Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission which he held from 2004 to 2014.

Mr Ahluwalia has been a key figure in Indian economic policy. He writes on various aspects of development economics and has been published in prominent Indian and international journals and books. He co-authored Re-distribution with Growth: An Approach to Policy, which, published in 1975, was a path-breaking book on income distribution. In February 2020, he published his book, Backstage: The Story Behind India’s High Growth Years, an insider’s account of policymaking from 1985 to 2014.

For his outstanding contribution to economic policy and public service, he was conferred the prestigious ‘Padma Vibhushan’ in 2011, India’s 2nd highest civilian award for exceptional and distinguished service.

Mr Ahluwalia graduated from Delhi University and holds an MA and an MPhil in Economics from Oxford University. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College Oxford.

Moderator

Laveesh Bhandari

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP.  Dr Bhandari has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic, and social reforms in India, economic geography, and financial inclusion. He received his PhD in economics from Boston University for which he was awarded the Best Thesis in International Economics. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. Apart from applied economics research, Dr Bhandari has built, seeded, and exited from three companies in the research, analytics, and digital domains, including Indicus Analytics, a leading economic research firm. Currently, he is conducting research on issues of inclusion, India’s energy transition, and how it will impact the government as well as the economy.

Welcome Address

Neeraja Kulkarni

Neeraja Kulkarni is a Research Analyst with the Foreign Policy and Security vertical at CSEP. Her work spans topics including just energy transitions, wildlife conservation, and climate security, with a focus on critical minerals supply chains and equitable development in South Asia and East Africa. She recently supported the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and China Environment Forum in Washington DC. Neeraja has previously published for Wilson Center’s New Security Beat, Stimson Center’s South Asian Voices, Fair Observer, The Diplomat, and Climate Policy Lab. She holds a master’s degree specialising in International Development and Environmental Policy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at GKaur@csep.org for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at AManocha@csep.org for media queries.