I was, given my Penn degree and the fact that my professor was the author of the Wharton Econometric Model and an early recipient of the Nobel in econometrics, asked to make the first serious plan of self-reliance in food. In those days, American think-tanks, the Hudson Institute, the Paddock brothers and others called us a basket case, which would never feed itself, and one of your distinguished predecessors from Texas, gave us a lot of food aid for which we are always grateful, but tended to side with our detractors. In 1974, when we said that we would be self-reliant by 1978, they all made fun of us.

But India matters, as you have said. And by 1978, Mr President, we exceeded our grain target and never looked back. Even our finance ministry had not believed us in 1974, but India could do it. In Washington, I was asked how we exceeded our grain target by 2 million tonnes to which I had said, “I come from Ahmedabad, we are a trading people and we build in reserves in our policies.”

By 1990, our food basket was diversifying. Grain consumption growth was slowing down and non-grain food picking up, fats, sugar, fruits and vegetables growing at twice the grain rate and milk, fish and eggs even faster. In a neat table, I showed how this was happening as our economy was growing faster in the Rajiv Gandhi period and my senior, Vijai Vyas, did it more elegantly. India mattered then too, but until the CIA and Goldman Sachs picked it up in 2003, they didn’t tell your predecessors.

... contd.