Pervez Tahir (PT) is no more, having departed to meet His maker on September 29, 2023. PT, as he was popularly and endearingly called, was born three months before the birth of Pakistan in what is now Faisalabad. A multi-faceted personality and an economist by training, he floated in and out of the world of academia, journalism and government service. He belonged to the Joan Robinson school of thought and was more of a political economist, with his forte being quantitative analysis. However, he is best remembered more for his advocacy for the rights of the people.
Hafiz Pasha recalls first meeting PT in 1972 when they were taken on board Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's speech writing team, which reported to Special Assistant Rafi Raza. Two and a half decades later, the two crossed paths again at the government level when Hafiz Pasha joined the caretaker government, and PT was the Joint Chief Economist. Hafiz Pasha recalls that, in a presentation at a cabinet meeting, PT made a radical speech on social inequality in the country and the responsibility of the government to address the issue.
Earlier, PT had joined the government service in 1977 as a Deputy Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance and rose to the position of Chief Economist in 2000; resigning in 2006 on a matter of principle. He also held key executive positions as the Managing Director of the National Energy Conversation Centre and Chairman of the Punjab Bank in 2016. His tenure at the Planning Commission extended to over three decades and he was at the heart of preparations of the Fifth to Eighth Five Year Development Plans. The social sector chapters therein carry PT’s particular imprint. That none of the Plans saw meaningful implementation is another story.
In journalism, PT started his career in 1971 as the editor of a Lahore-based weekly, the Punjab Punch and continued to write articles for national newspapers till his last days. He was a prolific writer and contributed over a hundred newspaper articles, two of which that merit mention are "Why Fudge the Figures?" in Dawn of May 30, 2009 and "The Moral Basis of Economy" in The News of April 24, 2016.
PT's personality was marked by abject modesty despite a very substantive government and academic career. He was a friend of the underprivileged people and provinces
PT also had an illustrious academic career. He acquired two Masters in Economics, one from the Government College Lahore and the other from the University of Colorado, USA. He followed that with a PhD from the University of Cambridge in the UK. He also attended senior manager training at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, USA, in 2005 and was the Joan Robinson Memorial Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2009.
His academic career started as a Lecturer at the Government College in Lahore in 1972, and he also served as a visiting lecturer at the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad from 1972 to 1976. Over three decades later, in 2007, he reverted to academia as the Mahbub-ul-Haq Distinguished Chair in Economics at his alma mater, the Government College in Lahore, and then as Head of the Department of Economics in FC College, Lahore, in 2009.
He served as the Managing Editor of the Pakistan Economic Journal and had been a member of the editorial or advisory boards of over ten professional economics journals in Pakistan and abroad, including the Cambridge Journal of Economics. He was also a member of the UNDP's Human Development Report from 2003-06.
Institutionally, he has been a member of over ten Boards of academic institutions, including the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) and Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in Islamabad and Applied Economics Research Centre (AERC) and Social Policy Development Centre (SPDC) in Karachi.
He penned over 150 research papers – journal articles, conference papers, book reviews and contributions to books and reports, and authored and edited six books and about 25 professional reports. His research publications covered a wide array of subjects from macroeconomic and policy issues, but close to his heart were political economy and equity issues affecting the people – poverty, unemployment, inflation, inclusive growth, land reform, fiscal federalism, education and labour.
Two of his books on "Translation of Iqbal's Writings on Economics", and "Economic Thinking of the Quaid-e-Azam placed the economic thinking of two of Pakistan's founders front and centre.
PT's personality was marked by abject modesty despite a very substantive government and academic career. He was a friend of the underprivileged people and provinces. He marked his presence in gatherings espousing human rights and causes affecting women, labour, journalists and smaller provinces. He was deeply troubled about the gross injustices of the economic and political system, but his concerns were never laced with any bitterness. Rather, he was always good-humoured and had the capacity to laugh and joke in social gatherings.
He has left behind his family and loved ones and an army of friends, colleagues, acquaintances and admirers. He will be missed.