192. Establishment and Political Leadership
Based on our new inspiration, we thought of studying a village and selected one of the ten census villages of Tamil Nadu, Thadagam. Our data, and the statistical calculations based on them confirmed our evaluation. We believed that this idea would be of interest to the top establishment of the country and the political leadership. Actuated by this inspiration we met a Member of the Planning Commission, a Chairman of a leading Institute, an ex-Governor of Kashmir who was an M.P., an advisor to the Government and one more VIP. All of them were unanimously of the opinion that that idea would not interest the Prime Minister.
It then dawned on us that only the political leadership would be open to new views. Our members met Indira Gandhi who was busy with hundreds of children. She said, "You speak interesting things. Please wait." After listening to our member, she was all appreciation of the view, spoke to a gathering of scientists that same evening and gave an order to convene a national conference on development indicators. Our member addressed the conference.
The Spirit of understanding national priorities is more with the political leadership of the country than with any other sector such as administration or other wings known as establishment. In a few years, the World Bank revised its idea on statistical evaluation and announced a new scale known as PPP in place of the earlier measure which was partial.
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