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Prof Seshamani: an academician of note

Prof Seshamani: an academician of note
Written by Bivan Saluseki
Friday, September 11, 2009 4:47:54 PM

I am a Zambian in spirit, says University of Zambia Professor of Economics Venkatesh Seshamani. In an interview, Professor Seshamani says Zambia today is his family's first home.

"India is only our second home, it's the land of our birth. India is the land of my birth, but Zambia has become the land of my action or karma. That is how God has ordained it should be for me and my wife and therefore, our loyalty will always to be Zambia in terms of work, in terms of whatever I try to contribute to the betterment of the country - training manpower and so on, that is really my mission," he says.

At the University of Zambia, Professor Seshamani has definitely assured himself of a place on the academic merit list.

With a CV reading like a wish-list, Professor Seshamani's work and humility is his best introduction.

Question: I would like to welcome you to this interview Professor. Just give us a brief background of yourself.

Answer: I was born and brought up in Bombay which is today called Mumbai but when I was born...obviously before India got her independence in 1947...it was called Bombay and I spent my childhood and did my school and my education until I secured my masters degree in economics over there. I also worked there for some time from 1968 to 1977 and towards the end of 1977, I got an offer of a job in the University of Dar eßs Salaam, Tanzania. So I went there. I worked in the university for four years and then I came to Zambia in 1982 and somehow although it was planned not to be so at that time, I just remained here until today. I have been working at the University of Zambia as a professor of economics.



Q: Could you tell us more about your family? If you have a wife and children?

A: Yes, I got married in 1976 to my wife Lalitha who too worked in Bombay when we were there but subsequently when we went to the University of Dar es Salaam, she worked as a researcher in the area of nutrition in the Economics Research Bureau. And then when we came here, she started working in school and today she is the deputy headmistress of the Italian School of Lusaka. We have two children. The first-born is Sharmishtaa and she will soon be finishing her doctorate in Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA in the field of medical imaging. And we also have a son Shreyas who will be finishing his masters degree in robotic engineering from the University of Pennsylvania next year. So we have only two children. We are a small family. But the children have been in the US for many years now and here we are just the two of us.

Q: In terms of brothers and sisters, do you have any?

A: Unfortunately, I don't have brothers and sisters because my father died. I was the first-born and my father died when I was about a year old because of TB. As you know in those years, there was no known cure for TB and therefore, he passed away and my mother never got married again. So she became a widow at the age of 19. Since then, she has remained single and when my father died, she moved to her parents’ house and so I was brought up in the house of my maternal grandparents. My maternal grandfather was a very well known educationist of his time. In fact, he was one of the first persons in India to get a university degree way back in 1915 and he worked in various institutions in Bombay with a lot of British colleagues then and he also worked in the University of Bombay in the registrar's office and then retired.

Q: What kind of a family do you come from? Did you come from a rich family?

A: No, I hailed from a fairly low-income family but it was not so low that we went out of food and clothing. I was always given good food, good clothing. I went to a good school, it was a missionary school called St Michaels High School. I finished my school there. I then had the opportunity to study in one of the premier colleges in Bombay, Elphinstone College, which was affiliated to the University of Bombay. My grandfather was very particular that I should go to that college even though it was some distance from where we were living because some former freedom fighters had also been educated there. He felt that I should also be educated there. Subsequently, I went to do my postgraduate studies at the University of Bombay and then I taught for some years. Then I applied for a Fullbright Fellowship to do further postgraduate studies in the United States and at that time, because I had specialised in mathematical economics and statistics, there was this new subject called operations research which dealt mainly with programming techniques and so on and a lot of people told me if I could also do operations research, then my training in the quantitative area would be complete. Unfortunately, there was no programme of operations research in the University of Bombay and I don't think there were other universities in India offering that. So when I found this advertisement for the Fullbright Fellowship, I said let me apply and see if I can get it. There was some minimum of requirements for one to apply for that fellowship that time. You had to have a first class scholastic record right up to a masters degree. You must have secured the first division in your school. The first degree must be a first class. The masters degree also must be a first class, something like a distinction in this part of the world. And then you had to be at least 22 years of age, you should have taught or been in employment for at least two years. Those were the requirements. And when I applied, I found that the whole process of selection took a whole year. I had to take a number of exams, tests and interviews. I came to know the reason for this only subsequently when the Director of the United States Educational `Foundation for India told me about it- that there were only six scholarships available for the whole of India, in all subjects excluding medicine and there were 40,000 applicants. And so I was one of those six lucky ones who were selected finally and I was very happy that I made it. There had been such a tremendous process of elimination to select the candidates.



Q: What happened when you moved to Dar es Salaam?

A: When I went to Dar es Salaam, I was very happy because everybody said ooh that Africa...you know is in the third world, you are leaving Bombay...but I found that the academic environment was very vibrant. You were expected to give a seminar once every term or so. If one did not present a paper, colleagues would say, 'what happened, we are waiting for the paper.' And there would be a lot of heated debates and discussions. So I finished one contract there. And they renewed my contract but by the time I was finishing my second contract, Tanzania went to war with Uganda to oust Idi Amin. It was what I would say a Phyrric victory in a sense that although Tanzania won the war, it lost a great amount of resources and the situation, especially the living conditions became extremely difficult. My daughter was born there. You could not find even get things like, baby food, milk and so on. Life became very difficult. So I decided that since my contract was coming to an end, I would go back. But at that time, there were two or three people from here. One was Dr Chilebwe Ng'andwe who was Head of the Economics Department then and subsequently became director for SIDO. He came there as a visiting lecturer. He came to know that I was a very good lecturer there. So he said since your contract is coming to an end, why don't you come to us for some two years. Another person was Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane. He came to do his masters degree there around 1979, because there was no masters in economics programme then at the University of Zambia. So I was his lecturer there and he knew me better and my competence and he too urged me to come to UNZA. And then also there was the late Dr Patrick Ncube who had taught with me for sometime at the University of Dar es Salaam and subsequently came to the University of Zambia and he also told me, 'come to Zambia.' And because all these people insisted, I asked my wife and she said 'ok let's go'. And that's how I came here.

Q: How would you describe your experience of lecturing at UNZA?

A: Ooh, it's been very, very gratifying. I think that you know, I always say to myself; if money is your main objective in life, you should not be in the academic profession anywhere in the world. Even in the United States, professors are paid very highly but they are paid much less than those who work in industries for example. If you are in the academic profession then you have to look for other sources of motivation. For me it's the opportunity to contribute to the development of the human resources of the country. I think in a larger sense I would call it psychic income, In terms of monetary income, as you know, for a very long time our salaries have been very low and if I had gone into some other profession, I would have had a much higher salary. But I felt that the value of my contribution here in Zambia through UNZA would be much greater. And over the years, I found that several of my family of students that had come under my tutelage had become people in high places. And whenever I meet them, they would greet me and say we work here because of you and so on. It used to give me a tremendous sense of satisfaction. And today, I can say I have no regrets whatsoever for the past 27 years, I lived my 27 years at the University of Zambia despite the low income and so on because I look around, I find that there are ministers, deputy ministers, permanent secretaries...

Q: Like? You can mention some.

A: I don't know if I should mention them, some people might like it, some people might not. But Edith Nawakwi [FDD president] was my student, Newton N'guni was my student, right now the deputy minister of agriculture is my student. There are permanent secretaries in so many places. But if you walk through the corridors of the ministry of finance, I think 90 per cent of them would have been my students.

Q: What about the standards and quality of students being churned out of UNZA, has there been any deterioration as a result poor infrastructure for instance, inadequate funding, brain drain?

A: You see UNZA has had a bad name only because it has not been able to run its programmes efficiently, on schedule because of lack of funds. Within those constraints, one thing they we have always made sure at the level of academic staff, is that the quality of our level of education does not suffer. So that when our students graduate from here and they go to do further studies let's say in top universities in US, UK or Europe they will prove equal to the demands of the programmes there. We try to maintain those high standards. But in terms of duration, it's because of strikes you find a four-year programme becomes six years and so on. That is what is eroding the credibility of UNZA, not the decline or deterioration of academic standards. Of course sometimes, there is a problem because somewhere in the high school the standards are not being maintained. So there are some of these students, who don't come with the level of knowledge as is expected from high school graduates.

Q: Coming to Zambian's economy. There is some prediction of five per cent growth. Although just the other day we were told by Felix Mutati that it just be about four per cent.

A: You see, Zambia is still a vulnerable economy because we are still dependant upon factors beyond our control. And so we may make these projections based on some assumptions but if these assumptions are not borne out and something catastrophic happens on the global field then everything can crumble you know. We have an opportunity to achieve five per cent growth and that will be remarkable because India for example which has been growing at nine per cent until last year is hoping that it will grow only at five per cent or five per cent plus this year because of the global crisis. And many countries are operating even at lower rates of growth. So if we achieve five per cent growth, it would be good. Of course, the requirements of growth are very high, because poverty levels are very, very high. Unless you have seven to eight per cent growth, you wont be able to make a significant dent in the rate of poverty. So that is the problem. And then there could be specific stumbling blocks, say high fuel because of the global crisis. For example last year the copper prices were around US$8,000, it crashed down to US$ 2,000 and regained to US$ 4,000 and now it around US$6,000. With such fluctuations, you will see that your economic calculations cannot always be accurate.

Q: On the global economic front, are things getting any better? Are the worst days over for the economic crisis? I know that Japan has come out of the recession. The US is making headways too. The economic crisis is seemingly over, do you think the world economic order is changing?

A: It is changing because the recent report of the IMF is saying the downturn is over and Japan, France and Germany are slightly over the pickup. And the US will also pick up except that things cannot happen pretty fast. So things will pick up but only slowly. We expect that for example jobs will be restored, new jobs will be created in a very significant way but it will still take time.

Q: Some analysts believe China is on the route to taking over from US as the global economic power? And what is your comment on the benefits and ills of increased Chinese investment in Zambia like the rest of Africa and how best can it be used to make the so-called 'win-win' situation?

A: Sure. China has the potential. There are two things about China. One is that it's a huge country with the world's largest population. So it has got unlimited manpower resource. China has the capability to produce anything on this earth. Even in the United States most things you buy are made in China. Even the American flags are made in China. So you know that way China is a model of an economic power. And secondly you see in China right now they have an advantage of not being very democratic. I was recently in China. I attended an international conference on health economics a month ago. You should go to Terminal 3 at the airport which was specifically constructed for the Olympic games. There is nothing equivalent to that in the world including the United States.

Q: Yes, I saw that too. I was there a few weeks before the Olympics.

A: Yes. Now I was told that that was an area which had slums for people. They were just told ' you have to move. We are giving you somewhere else to stay. We are going to construct the Olympic Stadium and so on.' And people had no choice. But you cannot do a similar thing in India. Let's say the government wants to construct something and wants to clear some slums, there will be 10 opposition parties trying to take advantage, march on the streets, they will gather people to incite them to do this. So you know it's not easy to implement these things. In China once the party and the government decides you have no choice.

Q: So a little bit of dictatorship and an ounce of democracy works?

A: Yes, you know a little bit of dictatorship works for a country like that and United States of America cannot do the things that China has done. That is why there is this debate about what is good for a developing country. Is it a benevolent dictatorship or is it democracy. That debate is still going on. In India we have democracy, so you can never take quick decisions.

Q: You need a dictator to whip a country out of slumber.

A: Yes. But the problem is what if he turns out to be Idi Amin or emperor Bokassa. That is where the problem is.

Q: What about the benefits and ills of Chinese investments? I asked about the win-win situation?

A: No, it's a win-win situation because, you know China wants access to the basic resources in Africa. Africa is very rich in natural resources such as minerals, which China wants. And Africa also wants Chinese investment. We can achieve higher rates of growth and development if we can get Chinese investment. But to make it truly a win-win situation, but we need to take action and enforce adequate regulatory measures to make sure that the negative consequences do not override the positive benefits. You have a couple of incidents which happened in the mines, such as the shooting incident, and no prompt action was taken. I wrote a paper which I presented at an international conference in Doha last November trying to show the difference in approach between Chinese and Indian investors. The thing is Indian investors are purely private. The Chinese investors are purely government and government-to-government relationships are very good. The relationship between the government of Zambia and the government of China, between the government of Zambia and the government of India are very good. So if a private investor comes to you and starts business, and he makes a mistake, government can immediately take action but in a similar situation if it is a government investment, then government hesitates because they don't want to spoil the good relations with other countries. It's a government-to-government relationship. And that is what is happening. So if government can somehow move and also take action or strong regulatory measures, I think it can be a win-win situation.

Q: Copper mining has continued to be the main driver of the Zambian economy despite repeated calls for diversification into other sectors, and these calls are as old as 40 years? Why do you think this process has been so slow compared with other countries like Chile which are thriving away from copper?

A: I think it is simply lack of commitment. You see, I believe that two things are required for any country's development. Right knowledge and commitment. You must be committed to the development of your country especially at community and grassroots level. Secondly you should have the knowledge to know what is the right thing to do, right policies and so on. Now if you look at the regimes Zambia has gone through, the Second Republic and the First Republic under Dr Kaunda, I think the commitment was there. Under Kaunda, I would say the right knowledge was not there, it was not sufficient knowledge. Commitment was there. I think Dr Kaunda was genuinely committed to alleviating the living conditions of the poor and making Zambia a decent country to stay in. Commitment was there but apparently the problem was with ideologies - humanism, socialism and so on and so forth, then circumstances changed- certain strategies could not be carried on and you could not sustain the benefits. When you come to the Third Republic and the Chiluba regime, I think the knowledge improved. The government realised it had to rid itself of the responsibility of producing toothpaste and sugar. There is need to allow the market forces and the private sector to largely direct the economy. But I think the role of the government is not reduced because of that. The favourite phrase of yesterday was that 'government has no business in business'. It has no business in business only in the limited sense of 'business' but it must have a prominent role in terms of regulating the economy. In fact government's role increases especially because you are confronted with major developmental challenges where a large majority of citizens are poor. And there was need for responsibility of addressing the issue of poverty. I think that commitment began to wane, that's how we lost. I think it's only the time that President Levy Mwanawasa came in that we saw that both commitment and knowledge improve. That is why even today, a lot of people respect the late President because he showed genuine commitment.

Q: So are we still seeing the commitment from President Rupiah Banda's government too?

A: I think it's a bit early to comment on the present regime. We can only hope that the high commitment and knowledge which existed during Dr Mwanawasa's time will continue.

Q: To what extent does culture influence economic progress of any country? I say so because it is believed that Tiger economies, apart from having good economic programmes, do have very hardworking culture which has catalysed their success?

A: Sure, if you are talking of culture and work culture specifically, I think it is very, very important. You see the difference between United States and Japan. Both have got good work culture but very different. There is a difference in that suppose you go to see the secretary in a company in the United States, you go there five minutes before eight, she is not there. You go there at 8 O'clock she is there. You go there at 5 O'clock in the evening, she is there. You go five minutes past five she is not there. So between eight and five, she will do her job very sincerely and that's it. In Japan, it will be 07:30 in the morning she is there up to 6 O'clock in the evening, or 8 O'clock in the evening. No over-time and nothing more. They say that this is our company. So even though the regulations state that you should work from eight to five, they are prepared to work from seven to eight. But the American would work from eight to five. You know how it is here.[Zambia] (laughs). You know I went to a function I won't mention the name. Honourable Dipak Patel was the minister of commerce. I went there about five minutes to nine. Then I found honourable Patel there, the only one waiting as a guest of honour and he asked :Professor, am I in the right place? And I said yes. But the organisers were not there. Can you imagine? Even the organisers had not come. He said I will only wait up to 09:30 and after that I will have to leave because I have to pick someone at the airport. So if they don't come by that time, I am leaving. So this is the situation and this happens repeatedly. We are not of course an exception. But we need to realise that most valuable resource..

Q; In terms of fighting poverty, are we on the right track?

A: We have begun to be on the right track. You see as far as fighting poverty is concerned, you know many of people have said the problem with Zambia is not the shortage of resources but the lack of right priorities in the use of resources. And at one time, we had not been able to do anything for poverty because we had not allocated enough resources for poverty reduction activities. It's only recently that we are trying to show some seriousness. Poverty you fight it by improving access to basic education, health services, improving access to improved sanitation and access to water. These are the areas and the question is how much are you devoting. Now the point is that a country like Zambia goes to these international conferences. They bring up all these issues and it agrees to make health a priority, education a priority and says we must devote at least this minimum percentage of your budget to education and you sign but when you come back you don't do it. You agreed in Abuja that you must apportion 15 per cent of your budget to health but you are still not doing that. So we are moving in the right direction but I as somebody who is very much interested in making poverty history in Zambia, I can tell you honestly that today...I am an Indian national

Happy to be in Zambia on my passport but I am a Zambian in spirit. I have a lot of empathy for those living on the fringes of existence. And I am of the point of view that more and more resources should be devoted to poverty reduction activities. We are improving, moving in the right direction but the pace is slow but it is from that point of view that more and more resources should be devoted to poverty reduction activities. We are improving, only slowly. We are moving in the right direction but the pace is slow. I think it can be activated.

Q: I am literally cruising through my questions because of time. Coming to religion, you are Hindu or Christian?

A: You see, nominally I am a Hindu but I always give the answer which Mahatma Ghandi gave when he was asked what his religion was. He said ‘I am a Hindu, I am a Moslem, I am a Christian, I am a Jew. I am all of these or I am none of these.' I think that these are but the same different things. If you take the Sermon on the Mount, Hinduism also says the same thing, Islam also says the same thing. Nobody would contradict the Sermon on the Mount. I had a very unique opportunity in my childhood. I was born in a nominally Hindu family. I went to a school, which was a Christian school but the school was located in an area which had a predominantly Moslem population. So in my class, there were only a handful of Hindus and there were some Christians and there were Moslems. So I used to interact with all of them and I think I have imbibed a lot and I have got so much interest in the Bible and I have a fair amount of knowledge of the Bible.

Q: Last time you did a paper on the declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation.

A: Yes, I said I have no problems with that declaration because I think it's a declaration to say our actions should be in line with Christ's teachings and if the declaration is simply to remind people...this is the purpose of your life, to attain self-realisation or God realisation ultimately and for that they need to follow the path prescribed by Jesus. If it is just to remind people of that, then I have no problems. I myself remind myself of two statements from the Bible. First, ‘seek ye first the Kingdom of God and everything shall be added unto you’. And the second is 'what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his soul?' You know. You may become famous, you may become powerful, you may be very rich in the whole world but if it is compromising your soul, your integrity, your honesty and your sense of values, at the end of the day you leave this world, was it worth it? You are not going to carry even a dry blade of grass with you when you die. What you will carry with you are your good deeds. The good actions on this earth. When you remind yourself like that, then in the course of the day, even if I am faced with a lot of temptations, I would say: if the whole world is not worth losing my soul, is a few million kwacha worth it? It's not worth it. I can't sell my soul. So in that sense, I will say that I am very eclectic in my outlook. And I think it's for this reason that for example if you take the JCTR, it's a Jesuit organisation and they have kept me on their board of trustees for six or seven years. They think of me as Christian in my thinking. So I would say that I do not really like to talk about this. I sometimes respond very cynically when someone asks me about my religion, that I am a Shakespearean. Then they say, no, we are asking you about your religion. I say I am telling you my religion and I am Shakespearean. You see, Shakespeare made one of his characters say: And this above all, to thine own self be true and it shall follow as the night the day, thou cannot be fault to any man. Ultimately if you are true to your own conscience, your own inner voice, whatever you want to believe is inside you. If I am true to that I cannot be false to you. If I am trying to harm you, I am going against my own inner voice because it will say ‘look, what you are doing is not right.’

Q: Any final comments, I know you are very busy?

A: Well, my entire family and I are extremely happy that we came to Zambia. In fact, my children consider Zambia as their home. They don't consider the United States or India because they don't know those countries. My daughter when asked; ‘where is your home’ she says Zambia. For me and my wife also, I would say Zambia today is our first home. India is only our second home, it's the land of our birth. India is the land of my birth, but Zambia has become the land of my action or karma. That is how God has ordained, it should be for me and my wife and therefore our loyalty will always be to Zambia in terms of work, in terms of whatever I try to contribute to the betterment of the country - training manpower and so on, that is really my mission.

Q: Professor, thank you very much for your time.

A: Thank you.

Labels: PROFILE, UNZA, VENKATESH SESHAMANI

posted by MrK @ 3:51 PM