Prashant points us at yet another interesting, Desi economic history piece by Gautam Bastian. In it, Gautam quotes a provocative Telegraph OpEd that discusses a surprising diversity in the Desi Intellegentsia’s attitudes towards the market. Instead of the uniform, Pavlovian rejection Uncle Milt experienced, the Telegraph’s Ramachandra Guha points at a specific braindrain of Guju econ knowledge –
Back in the Sixties, it used to be said that India’s most successful export were economists. Our economy was resolutely insulated from the rest of the world, but our economists occupied high posts in famous universities in Europe and America. Later, the joke was amended to say that the reason India’s economy was mediocre was because its economists were world-class. No South Korean was a professor of political economy at Cambridge; no Malaysian had been awarded the Nobel Prize. But their economies grew at an impressive 8 per cent, whereas ours stayed stuck at 3.5 per cent, also known as the “Hindu” rate of growth.My own theory about Indian economists is more specific and hopefully less facetious. It runs as follows; Gujarati economists place faith in the market, while Bengali economists are prone to trust the state. In the Fifties, when P.C. Mahalonobis drafted the Soviet-inspired second five year plan, A.D. Shroff responded by starting the Forum of Free Enterprise. In the Sixties and the Seventies, about the only economist of pedigree advocating Indian integration with the world economy was the Gujarati, Jagdish Bhagwati. He was opposed by an array of Marxists, many of whom (naturally) were Bengali.
As Gautam notes, several prominent thinkers have attacked the the broad question of “if intellectuals are so smart, how come so many have been so wrong about markets?” (Heck, little old me, in my blogging youth tried to add on to Nozick). But by slicing and dicing across socio-cultural lines within India, Guha takes the question in a different direction. While I’d heard the stereotype of Bengali Marxists (keep in mind that my homestate – Kerala – has its fair share as well) I wasn’t aware that Guju’s were responsible for the counter pole. Biz friendly Gujus, eh? I suppose many stereotypes start with a grain of truth somewhere….
Here goes Shodan: Mane khokha joiye. Is it ok if I am Bong but ask in Gujarati? FYI, I am all free market and shite like that.
In Tamil Nadu we have a mercantile community called the Chettiars. They bankrolled maritime trade to Southeast Asia for about 1,500 years, my bet is they had much to do with the “Indianisation” of Thailand/Cambodia/Malaysia/Indonesia
Isn’t Gujurat a traditional BJP stronghold? Pro-business is probably like a cultural trait almost… propagated down over the years.
Keynes:
Conventional wisdom has it that (in no particular order) Gujjus, Marwaris, Sindhis, and Sikhs (of Khatri/Arora castes) are India’s best business people.
Conventional wisdom in Patiala perhaps. The South has the Chettiars, Bunts/Shettys, Komattis, recently the Nadars and Reddys, et. al. who are considered very good in business. The current Finance Minister of India, the Harvard-trained Chidambaram, is a Chettiar.
See Neal #7 . 😉
As always! one tries to look up Chettiar history and is led to sites with teasers and then drumroll….matrimonials. sigh! anyways, i couldnt find information on the maritime trade piece…however, I have seen old paintings going back to Chera/Pandya/Chola empire depicting ships with a prow in the shape of a peacock that closely resembles similar paintings in Thailand. Potentially Hinduism spread via those empires and yep, they date back well before 500 AD. BTW, there is a decent description of the similarity between Chetty, Shetty and Seth etc… here : Chettiar.
Ahh lol…
Doesn’t khoka mean little boy in Bangla? Why confuse fellow Bongs?
All b.s. aside, there’s someone who introduces you to the lender for which he gets .5% or some such cut. He is sort of responsible for your behaviour, so he has to make sure that you’re good for it.
shodan: Peti and Khoka are underworld terms and not Gujarati terms. Kavva (cellphone) is another. For a complete list of underworld terms, refer to Satya and Company. ;-P
They can begin with using Gujarati’s as consultants to help ‘jump start’ the local economy, but that may be too much for Bengali pride to digest 🙂 or too much fish for some Swaminarayan Gujus to deal with.
Quizman, I bow to your superior knowledge of trivia. But Underworld IS business. With killings when needed. They pick their slang from everywhere. So not sure who started it. The Zaveri Bazaar types I know have been using it for many years. Maybe they wanted to sound all gangsta and suddenly started dropping bhai vocab?
Yeah, I wasn’t trying to ignore the South…sorry…my bad. I am just not as aware of the business communities there as I am for the North. Thanks for the information. Are people with the last name Pillai also from a business/mercantile background?
What is amazing about the diamond industry is that gujju bhais travel with diamonds in their pockets (rolled up in paper) on the Mumbai-Surat train very day. You wouldn’t know who they are, but millions of dollars worth of diamonds are sent this way. The whole system works on trust – an established mechanism that works only with strongly knit communities. Everyone knows everyone else. Woe Betide, if you screw up – your entirely clan will be after you. That’s why the diamond trade is very closely restricted to the Palanpuri Jain community. Gita Piramal has written (in the book ‘Business Maharajahs’) about Bharat Shah and co. Apparently, they live in modest homes, work in modest offices (Antwerp and Mumbai), and one wouldn’t know how wealthy they are, until you see one of their kitschy wedding dos. {In the early 1990s, a diamond merchant booked the Wankhede stadium, built a faux Rajasthani palace and invited the whos-who of the diamond industry, politicians, cinema stars to it. This caused penis envy in another diamond merchant. So he chartered a Boeing 707, got his son married in it, while it was flying over Mumbai – with holy fire and all – and advertised the fact all over India. Sheeeesh.)
Shodan, I think it is partly because of the protection money that the Zaveri Bazaar merchants gave to the local gangstas, which in turn bankrolled other mafia operations in Bombay. Of course, you did not hear it from me and I certainly would not know of these things — good Bong khoka that I am. I blame it all on the
sex andviolence in Bollywood movies and Shantaram, the novel.Turnip,
I really am concerned I sound like you, only you’re putting on an act, and….I really sound like that. Crap. Its pretty funny though. Huzzah chappie
🙁
So I’m actually a Gujarati but I’ve always been impressed by the parts of India that are getting dissed as “too intellectual” here. I mean making money and being entreprenurial is just part of the culture in Gujarati families. Just as an extreme example, I had one uncle who was seriously considering giving up his medical practice in order to run a liquor store because someone at his mandir had informed him it was “more profitable”. My own father gave up a career as an engineer to run a series of motels. Nearly every “established” Gujarati I know is running some kind of business.
But — at least in the Gujarati community I grew up in — there was very little importance placed on knowledge or culture for its own sake. Art and intellectual theory were only important if they were very old and very famous signifiers of culture. “Real” or “important” innovation is the kind that gets you paid. It’s all about the Benjamins. Which I suppose is not a bad attitude if you’re happy with it.
But it’s interesting to run into Bengalis, Malyalees, etc… who have these really modern, current intellectual and artistic traditions. Of course my fascination with this kind of thing has helped cement my “bad Indian/bad Gujarati” image in the eyes of my parents 😉
Excellent post, Vinod. As someone interested in economic history in general and Gujarat’s history in particular, this is a fascinating topic. For those who are looking for the Gujju school of economics, here’s some more luminaries:
1.CN Vakil 2.AD Shroff 3.JJ Anjaria 4.DT Lakdawala 5.IG Patel
The free market school of thought was mainly based in Bombay and Gujarat universities. However, it is simplistic to characterize this movement as Gujju vs. Bong. Yes, there were disproportionately high number of Gujjus on the “right” side, but there were others as well. One of the greatest thinkers in that era – the only economist that Milton Friedman himself ound to be of exceptional merit – was BR Shenoy, who headed the econs department of Gujarat University. DT Lakdawala followed him in that position and educated the next generation of economists at the same school. Another free market thinker was PR Brahmananda. The other Gujju economists were based in Bombay University.
What’s remarkable is that a lot of these guys were educated at the hotbed of pinko socialism, the LSE. It’s a tribute to their intellect and power of thinking that they still came out as free market proponents. Many of them were shunned by the establishment after they lost the power struggle to dumbass statists who were predominantly Bengalis. History is written by victors, and unfortunately, since these guys were on the losing side, their stories have never been told. Like many others here, I too grew up on textbooks that hailed the statist model and the Soviet Union.
There is a parallel on the political side as well, which has tended to be a discourse priamrily written by the Congressis, of the Congressis and for the Congressis. Most Indias today hardly know of anything other than the Congress and its “glory” in the fifties and sixties. However, the Swatantra Party and its leaders like Minoo Masani and Bhailalbhai Patel, aka Bhaikaka, were fairly influential in the sixties in Gujarat and Bombay. Swatantra Party even won a few seats in elections in Gujarat in the hey day of Congress power. Similarly, leaders such as Sardar Patel and C Rajagopalachari who had foreseen the stupidity of Nehru’s ways have also been systematically airbrushed out of Indian history by the comie-pinko-Congressis. However, these guys were outstanding leaders – I’d highly recommend reading Saradar Patel’s works to get a sense of the man’s intellectual gravitas. Today, he’s the favourite whipping boy of Marxists – encouraged by the COngressi sycophants who have converted a once great institution into the family fiefdom of the Nehru-Gandhis – and systematically painted as a closet Hindutva fascist, but Patel was a true intellectual giant and a great nationalist leader of vision, especially compared to that feeble f’tard Nehru.
Speaking of the LSE, it is remarkable in its own right as to how influential that institution has been in India’s formative years. After all, Nehru’s ideological guru was Harold Laski of the LSE and the Fabian Society. I remember reading somewhere that at Nehru’s cabinet meetings, one chair was left empty in honour of Laski who was assumed to be present in spirit!!
The comment that quoted JM Keynes on the power of political philosophy is indeed one of the greatest insights ever. The madman Nehru was indeed listening to the voices of socialist dumbasses and his chrony Mahalnobis – who was not even a real economist – used the pseudo-science to create policy. Sigh!! Nehru, Mahalanobis and VK Menon are the original axis of ideological evil. They unleashed pure hell on poor Indians that they are still living in. When will we ever become free?
Here’s an obit of Brahmananda.
BTW, I am curious as to why we are generally predisposed to calling proponents of intellectually bankrupt philosophies as “intellectuals”? After all, on the right side, people like IG Patel and Shenoy were also LSE PhDs and actually had views that were proven correct in the hindsight. Are they any less of intellectuals than the likes of Mahalanobis?
I, for one, have always taken particular pleasure in exposing the stupidity of the arguments that I’d regulalry get into with the left’ard Bongs that I used to run into in my college days in India. None of them struck me as an “intellectual” type, more of a sorry-ass anachronistic Trotsky-quoting reovlutionary wannabe that I took pleasure in ridiculing. And this was after the Wall had come down! On the other hand, I suppose that India is one of the few countries in the world where a communist party is not the laughingstock and the public equivalent of the Flat Earth Society yet so even indulging them into debate is, I suppose, an act of taking them seriously. It’s just so unfortunate that the power they exert in the ideasphere continues to destroy the lives of millions of Indians today.
Gujjubhai, the fault is not merely at the hands of Nehru, Mahalanobis, Menon and suchlike, but all the people of today, living in this day and age, who still support and bolster India’s socialistic ethos. At least Nehru was a dumbass who did not have enough empirical evidence. What about the dumbasses of today who still support this poisonous ideology of socialism even after all the countervailing empirical evidence? This disconnect from reality fueled by self-righteousness, can only survive in a climate of extreme brainwashing.
Quizman’s point of Bengalis doing well when they get out of Bengal corroborates this.
It’s no suprise that young “scholars” like Vijay Prashad are nostalgic for marxism, they were the beneficiaries of perks (i.e. housing colonies, the best schooling) that the socialists reserved for their own. “Babu spawn”, as I call them, resent the advancement of those of us who came up in spite of the best efforts of their parents
Most Jains (virtually all swetambara Jains, 90% of all Jains) are ethnically Guju or Marwari vaishas. Marwar is a region in southern Rajasthan neighbouring Gujarat, Marwari and Gujarati Hindus basically have the same religious and cultural traditions, the big difference is language. Many of the more entreprenureal muslim communities (Memons, Ishmailis) are ethnically Guju / Sindhi. Parsis are just anglophilic Iranian-Gujarati mongrels.
I think the disparity is largely a question of prestige. In Gujarati culture prestige is highly correlated with monetary wealth rather than education or the exclusiveness of the profession. In Bengali culture prestige has little to do with monetary wealth but rather with respect given to one by peers based on ones knowledge.
Another way to think of this is, all other things being equal, who would be a more desirable mate ? A small business owner with a few million dollars in net worth in the form of motel properties or a college professor making a nice comfortable couple hundred thousand a year from salary and consulting.
I agree with most of what Gujubhai-67 said above. I was born and raised in Ahmedabad – heart of Gujarat. Went to a Roman catholic run christian high school and later college called “ST. Xavier’s”. Interestingly, majority of acedemically “smart” kids were Non-Gujarati e.g. Madrasees (In Gujarat anyone from South of Bombay is generically known as Madrasee), Bengalis, etc. However, when it came to “Streetsmartness” they were always Gujaratis, Marwadis, Sindhis. etc. And of course there were few “Sardars”. In those days folks like Ennis and Amardeep were rare to find. Some of my best friends came from Ambanis, Sarabhais, Mafatlals, Katurbhai Lalbhais, Sir Chinubhai Baronets, Ambanis, etc. There is always exception to any rule. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai – a Gujarati – excelent World class intellectual who is responsible for ISRO and PRL in Ahmedabad. Umashanker Joshi – a Gujarati – was head of Tagore’s “Shantiniketan” in Bengal. Ambassador to USA — waaaay back was Gagannvihari Mehta. Dr. K. M. Munshi – founder of Bhavans in Bombay. Some of my best friends are still “Bengali Babus”. It is my observation that Gujaratis are more versatile than Bengali. Again, that’s just my opinion. Now let us have some Undhiu and Khamman Dhokra, and top it off with some Rosgullas, shall we? Happy Holidays !!
As always! one tries to look up Chettiar history and is led to sites with teasers and then drumroll….matrimonials. sigh!
Thomas Sowell ( a favorite of the blog author, I believe) has written on the Chettiars. Though a small minority, they controlled a substantial portion of the Burmese economy from the late nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries (and eventually expelled). Not unlike the Guju story in East Africa.
Are people with the last name Pillai also from a business/mercantile background?
They can be, but I believe (someone correct me) the name denotes an agriculturalist/herder. The Shaiva Pillais are considered a “forward” community in TN; they are vegetarians, and, as you might guess, staunch Shaivites. In Kerala. I believe Nairs can also also go by Pillai. In Kerala, I suspect that most of the merchant community converted to Christianity, and that the best traders in Kerala, historically, have been Syrian Christians. I grew up in B’lore and have seen that most businesses were owned by Gujjus, Sindhis, Jains and Muslims. A visit to the most popular market in the city will confirm that.
The top traditional jewelers, like Narayan Chetty, are owned by Chettiars; much of the prime property on MG road is still owned by Tamil Arcot Mudaliars, another mercantilist oriented community at one time considered “as British as the British.”
Awesome. The love for good food, east or west, is the same.
The etymology of Chetty is described as “Etti” – in tamil to jump up, to be eager, to call out as in traders calling out for business for their shops. “Pillai” or “Pillaimar” in tamil is not descriptive of agriculturist or herder. Although it could, I think they are more land owners/businessmen and also deeply involved in the shaivite rituals/poojas to the extent that other members of the community would turn towards them for help in Religious issues. All this from Sembarutthi and Malar Manjam by T. Janakiraman. and yes, they are begetarian AFAIK. Please correct if I am wrong.
sorry, vegetarian. begetarian almost sounds so deliberately misspelt. damn!!
Except Bengali food is better 😛
I keed.
Somewhat off-topic, but:
It’s not my intention to minimise the ills of a system where social prestige correlates largely with monetary success (and Neal has already tried to break up this Xtreme Gujju LuvFest in #7 & #66 ;-)), but I submit that the effects of “respect given to one based on one’s knowledge” can be a lot more tragic. Competence – or the lack thereof – in making money can be pretty easily assessed by anybody. However, knowledge (as opposed to smartness) – or the lack thereof – is hard to assess, since the lack of knowledge can be cleverly disguised by those who know the tricks of “knowledge production”. Often, therefore, one will find – in communities (espicially hierarchical ones) where the knowledgable greybeard/egghead is given unconditional respect – that the greybeard/egghead’s social peers actually bow to the arcana that he spouts and is supposedly the master of. (Does this remind you of someone with tenure :-))
That is how intellectual tyranny is born. And that is why I’m not at all surprised that India’s intellectual bullies have come from societies where “respect given to one based on one’s knowledge”. Mahalanobis was one such intellectual dada. But, mark my words: intellectual dadas continue to thrive in India (even though they have taken a break from bedeviling economics). Corollary: don’t be too surprised if, in an altered India 20 years hence, we see the emergence of intellectual bullies on the Right!
Gujjubhai, the fault is not merely at the hands of Nehru, Mahalanobis, Menon and suchlike, but all the people of today, living in this day and age, who still support and bolster India’s socialistic ethos
The Bengali dominated Left holds the strings of the current UPA government in India
The economics that I learnt in an Indian high school was part of the Civics class implying that it was a government function. So, if you were not born into a family that ran a business you had no clue how markets worked.
I donÂ’t know which syllabus you are talking about, but the elective high school (class 11 and 12) Economics syllabus in the CBSE system does not even remotely resemble a civics class. Sure it dwells on the role of the state , role of the five year plans ,the new economic policies launched in 1991 etc, but it has equal if not greater emphasis on standard ECON 101 concepts like laws of demand and supply, and production and costs that underlie how markets work. I certainly remember solving problems for equilibrium market price and supply, etc.
I’ll take/be the latter over the former any day 😛
And I’d be the latter equally as quickly 😉
I’m such a friggin disappointing Gujarati
: Gita Piramal has written (in the book ‘Business Maharajahs’) about Bharat Shah and co. Apparently, they live in modest homes, work in modest offices (Antwerp and Mumbai), and one wouldn’t know how wealthy they are, until you see one of their kitschy wedding dos.
Oh no, Palanpuris can be insanely brand-loving. As someone who is (unfortunately) related by marriage to the community, I can vouch for their Cartier fixations, and bathrooms with gold taps.
Speaking of stereotypes. As a 50% guju/50% bungu, let me just say that both groups have their ups and downs. Bungus could learn a thing or two from gujus about their work ethic, cool-headed practicality, and humble nature. Gujus on the other hand could use some pointers from bungus about placing less of a focus on money and more on education, enlightenment, and fashion (NOT!..jk y’all…i love u bungus). This of course applies more to folks in India than here due to New World evolution/blurring of the lines, etc.
Yes I know, I am a perfect hybrid.
I am aware of the class, but like you said it was an elective with a much smaller reach than the socialist crap taught to the kids in the civics class.
I wonder if the socialist of the 60 to 80s realize how many lives they adversely affected by having a measly 3% growth rate. The worst part was the constant villification of all Business people in all media. I saw my dad’s business die a slow death due in mumbai, we had to cross the seven seas and start a new life.
Goddam socialists…… now that I got it off my chest…michhami dukkadam.
elective high school Economics syllabus
Alright young’un. Let me switch to my “In my day …” mode.
Well said.
In regards to the Chettiars, there’s a book by David Rudner called ‘Caste and Capitalism in Colonial India: The Nattukottai Chettiars’. I’m too lazy to dig up the link, but it’s available for free on the web.
I can’t believe I’m reading all this politically incorrect provincialism on a blog that skews so heavily second generation. Arre bacho, leave all this offensive, but totally true, stereotyping to us first-geners.
Two comments: 1. Gujus and their tunnel vision (oops, “dedication”) for family, commerce and religion are unmatched by any other Indian ethnic group. They might be bested by only one other culture that I know as intimately as I know Gujus – the Chinese. The whole world is chasing “quality of life.” The Gujus and Chinese say – “what’s quality of life?” I can make this shameless assertion only because I am the biggest “Guju” of all. Life is about family, commerce and religion.
2.Entrepreneurship and economics are diametrically opposed to each other. Great writers vs. linguists. Artists vs. art critics. Vision vs. rules. Creating something yourself, whether a novel or a business, requires a completely different skill set than analyzing something that has been created by others. That is not to say that economists are any less important to mankind than entrepreneurs.
guju = highest growth rate in all of india. proud of heritage. gots it all together. bangistan = once home to giants like tagore and vivekananda, now pseudointellectual commie mulla hellhole.
nuf said
The general tone of this article seems to be commerce=gujjus/merchant community=good.
Is that always so? Old debate but nothing in life is an unmixed blessing. Nothing wrong with the Puneri who shuts shop at noon for a siesta or simply some downtime. And everything wrong with a Shillong where every business type (including Bengali bhadraloks) has conspired to ruin the place (and don’t get me started on the ridiculous pink temple intended to be for a God but really all about business).
My observations as similiar to most of the folks here. What I’m more interested in is why this is the case.
In any large group of people, there has to be a standard bell curve distribution on specific behaviour. So there should be a few Bengalis poor in business skills, a large majority who are average, and a small minority which is excellent. If the distribution is skewed, there is usually a good reason behind it. One usually finds answers from history.
From early AD to ~1200 AD, the reign of Tamil kings flourished all over south-east asia. The area from Burma to Indonesia was largely peaceful, and trade with China and the far-east flourished in the whole region. During this time, Bengalis were excellent businessmen. Moreover they had location to their advantage, since Bay of Bengal could be used as a shipping route and it was bang on the doorway to SE Asia. This was a period of great wealth and prosperity.
A century or so after the fall of Tamil kings, and the conversion of SE into Buddhism, there was peace, but the non-materilism of the new religion drove the lands from plentiful to below average within a couple of generations. This brought instability, and wars broke out. Throughout the last 800 years or so, they’ve been at each others’ throats. Bengal’s largest market popped like a bubble. Business became a bad word. The populace turned to intellectual debates and the like. Something similiar happened in the Tamil population around the same time.
Gujarat, on the other hand, has been trading since Roman times. During Mohammed’s reign, the Mediterranian coast was filled with Gujarathi trading enclaves. Even after the invasions from Arabia and Persia, Gujarat remained a business center because the Europeans continued to flock there for spices. Later, Africa became a major trading partner. There has been a continuity in trade – hence you see that Gujjus are street smart no matter where they go.
But this is not without its price. A steady, peaceful continuity of trade meant that the populace lost its marital instincts. To this day, the representation of Gujjus in the Indian army is poor. Here again, the standard bell-curve distribution is skewed.
And yes – dhokhlas and rosgullas will definitely make my day!
M. Nam
If gujjus are such great entrepeneurs and businessmen why is Gujarat so poor? Its per capita income is what $600 or 700 a year? Thats about the level of subsaharan Africa.
That is so true. A benefit to me from debating with the pseudo-intellectual Bongs was that I very quickly learnt the difference between smart and well-read. I understood that most Bongs confuse the two to be the same – if you can quote Trotsky or Marx’s take on anything, then you are smart. I took particular pleasure in taking on the standard lefty nonsense and then watching them squirm as they were left struggling for counterarguments that they could not draw upon from their extensive bookish knowledge. What I found them particularly lacking in was the critical examination of any such ideas or arguments and the ability to do any independent analysis starting from first principles in econ. Which, of course, stand to reason because even an elementary application of logic is sufficient to demolish most of the statist arguments so they would not have been letists in the first place if they had done any analysis based on evidence or reasoning on their own. Of course, it’d also not help when I’d start laughing out loud at the first mention of the word “bourgoiuse” as I – being a full-blooded Gujju having descended from a line of traders, of course – would’ve normally placed a side-bet with someone else on how quickly that word would appear in the conversation (I think my running average was about 7 minutes) into the debate and pocket some “chai-pani” money too :-).
That probably has a lot to do with caste discrimination.
Caste discrimination exists in other states as well. That cant explain why Gujarat is about as poor as the rest of India. At least you would expect it to be the wealthiest state in India. Thats not the case though.
Ummm…because it’s not? From Wiki: “The economy of Gujarat shows that it is one of the most prosperous states of the country, having a per-capita GDP 2.47 times India’s average. Of all the states, Gujarat controls some of the largest businesses in India. According to the data published by “Center for Monitoring Indian Economy” or CMIE, Gujarat ranked third among all the states of India in 2004, approximately same as Punjab and Maharashtra, at Rs. 15,800 [4].”
I agree. I had no concept of markets until college. Even then it was presented as this evil thing, a new form of colonization and so on. School syllabi talked about economics as a function of govt, as you said.
CBSE syllabus was very different from ours (Maharashtra state). Our syllabus did NOT have ANY econ in it whatsoever, which sucks.
Also, business was seen as something outside my culture and caste (a bengali AND a brahmin, so there’s a double whammy). “Business? Yuck, that’s what those dirty greedy Marwaris and Gujjus do!”. In our family, traditionally the IAS bureaucrat was the highest one could have aspired for.