As a student of economics, Sharad was influenced by classical economists like Adam Smith and became an ardent supporter of free economy. That period in India was heavily influenced by socialistic pattern of centrally planned development as practiced by the Soviet Union. Words like liberalization were unheard of then. Yet through his study Sharad became an advocate of free economy. G. R. Dixit, one of his professors, who later joined State Bank of India and was regarded as an expert in banking, had referred to it in a letter he wrote to his former student on 19 January 2002. He appreciated the fact that his students like Sharad Joshi, along with Jagdish Bhagwati and Ashok Desai, remained ardent supporters of free economy. Prof. Dixit wrote, ‘When I see today that majority of my students still advocate liberalization, privatization and globalization, I feel amply rewarded for what I imbibed in them strongly during those years.’ Sharad completed his B.Com. in May 1955 and M.Com. in May 1957, securing second class in both. International Banking and Statistics were his main subjects. Looking back on those formative years, two qualities of Joshi stand out – the first is strong faith in his intellectual ability to analyze. He was always keen to analyze every opinion before he accepted it. He had written about one incident to illustrate this. That happened when he was about twelve or thirteen. One day sitting by himself he had a thought, “How lucky am I to be born in the greatest of nations like India, there too in a great State like Maharashtra, and there too as a Hindu, the greatest of all religions; and even within Hinduism, in the highest caste of Brahmins!” But immediately he began to cross examine his thought. He concluded that there was nothing to be proud of in having been born in India because India ranked amongst the 30
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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage
