Brain drain: Bibek Debroy frowns upon students looking for 'elusive shores'

Bibek Debroy, the chairman of the economic advisory council to the prime minister, today slammed the pass-outs from top institutes for going to "elusive shores" after the studies. Addressing the students of the RBI-sponsored Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research on their convocation, he exhorted students who have studied in top schools, to stay back and "build a new India". "Some of you may be headed abroad for cards green or otherwise. The rest of my remarks do not apply to such people. The rest of my remarks apply to people who are not going to vanish to elusive shores," Debroy, an alumnus of the Trinity College, Cambridge, said in his address.

No senior official from RBI, including Governor Urjit Patel who is the chairman of the board of the institute, was present at the convocation. Incidentally, this is the second consecutive time that Patel skipped the convocation ceremony.

Debroy said anyone, including the students venturing out of the country, is free to criticise government, provided it is reasonable and with an understanding of the limitations of our country. Our governments across the Central, state and local body levels face a limitation in terms of fiscal and administrative capacities, Debroy said, pointing out that such aspects should be kept in mind before any critique.

He also said while criticising our government we should keep in mind that we are a nation with a low per capita income of around USD 1,800 and compare this with the way the developed world was say 70 years ago.
Pointing out to the Preamble of the Constitution, he said we will be a better governed not through government actions alone.

"I was born in India,I worked in India;I think all of you have been born in India and I hope you will continue to work here for an India that is waiting. Here is an India that is for you to build. Go out and build that new India,"he said.

Debroy, who has translated the Ramayana into English, also went public with his concerns on the word "convocation", which he claimed, has a "Western nuance".

"The word convocation itself has a Western nuance. Had it been traditional Indian kind of convocation, the words that we might have used today are either 'dikshant samaraha or samavartan'.Because of its nuance, samavartan is in some sense significant because the word means return," he said, adding the word signifies the return of a student from the gurukul.

Watch this Zee Business video on Bivek Debroy

"Samavartan is one of our traditional sanskaras and before every sanskaras, there used to be a purification ceremony at least in terms of taking a bath which is why in the traditional system anyone graduating would be called a snataka, from the word snan," he said, after handing over Masters of science, Masters in philosophy and Doctors of philosophy degrees to the around 30 students.