Mumbai, Aug. 5 (Agencies): Social damage caused by lynchings could have a longer-lasting impact on the economy than some wrong policy moves such as demonetisation, according to noted economist Kaushik Basu.

”I have a concern on the social side in our country. It does worry me. The lynching news... is of the kind that disappoints me while sitting in America,” Basu, professor of economics at Cornell University in the US, said here.

Basu was delivering the 23rd Lalit Doshi memorial lecture here on Friday evening.

“Social damages to an economy can take much longer to correct than demonetisation or a wrong economic move that can be corrected,” said Basu, who served as the Chief Economic Advisor to the Indian government from end-2009 to mid-2012.

Basu said there must be open debate and discussion on issues facing the country. India is a society that is poor but is respected for its scientific temper and research, and “we should not backtrack on that,” he said.

Basu said that, in every society, there are people who destabilise its harmony while talking about culture and make efforts to go back to that culture.

”We should be proud of our heritage, but we do not want to retreat (to the past). If we do so, that can have a long- lasting effect, not only on the quality of social life, but even on the economy,” he said.

He said one should take pride in one's literature and culture, but at the same time, should also be pragmatic.

”One example that hurts me as a Bengali from Calcutta is a 1983 decision on easing out English from primary school and making Bengali the primary language of teaching,” Basu said.

”This cultural attempt to reclaim your history by not picking up an instrument which is a vital instrument for engagement with the modern world has done huge damage to Bengal's economy,” Basu said.

Basu has also served as Chief Economist to the World Bank, which publishes an annual ranking of economies based on the ease of doing business. In the 2016 list, Indian was ranked at 131.

Stressing the need to have open debates and discussions on issues, he said, “It's very important that in a country like ours, you can do serious debates and discuss. You can say that these two policies are good policies and these two are bad.

”If you do not get into these discussions, you will make mistakes and that would really be very unfortunate for the country and the economy in the long run. I just like to believe that we will keep it open.”

He said last year’s demonetisation was a very big mistake and has had huge negative fallouts.

Basu welcomed the rollout of the Goods & Services Tax, saying the new tax regime has some teething trouble but it was the right thing to do.