D R Pendse on Think Tanks and the Power of Ideas

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si8F_I4P8xY Duration: 124.7s

D. R. Pendse (00:09): When I made a proposal, I will always first write a note, send it to — I will write, publish the article or send a note to JRD. And JRD, he will always say, “First class, excellent, very good.” And I also said, “Do you agree?” He said, “Yes. I seem to agree with everything what you say.” Because that is a fact, because I mean, I’m a Tata economist. So if I have interest of Tata than private sector industry, I’m bound to say something which is the interest of industry. You could see that. And he often said that there are really nothing to say. “I seem to agree with everything what you say.” So he never, never obstructed me from writing anything. Never. Never obstructed me from giving a speech. Never obstructed me to make a comment. Nothing. Never. Just left it to me because he was confident. He had complete faith that I will do something. Whatever I do will be in the interest of the country. It will be in the interest of industry. Because I was, in my opinion, I was in his 18. He believed in me. And that is — and he decided, why should he not believe in me? I’ve certainly done something which is good for the country in terms of economic policy. And all these economic policies which adopted, most of them are straight from articles. I proposed this. Monopoly Act cancelled. I will propose. Industrial, send in gold control. This, that, that — all these things were. And that — he didn’t do it directly because I propose. He did it because I may propose. I may propose because they had long discussions with me, and they are symbiotic. I’m not saying that they did only because I — they must have been convinced about it.