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D. Murali

THERE are many in the race already to grab the `nomics' suffix after their name. For instance, Reagonomics, named after US counterpart of our own filmi netas, made its appearance after his term of office was over, and it is said that it was not practised by Reagan.

He would be happy about the term, however, to mean a whole lot of things such as supply side economics, cutting taxes to stimulate the private sector economy, cutting government spending and balancing the budget. Later came Clinton who did many things differently; and the term named after him, namely, Clintonomics believed in the opposite — that is, increasing government spending, increasing taxes, and targeted tax cuts. We too have our share of people lending their names to the holy suffix. Such as Manmohanomics to refer to liberalisation, or Swaminomics — the other name for all that a consulting editor of a pink paper has to say.

Not all are that fortunate. Only because their names were wrong — not in the first place, but the last. For, to plump for the holy attachment, one's name should ideally end with `n', so that there is a smooth transition to the transplant. To make things easier, an `a' or `o' as the penultimate letter in one's name would help. There are some names such as Greenspan which would satisfy the aforesaid rules but still look clumsy with the suffix.

We don't make a cocktail of Gandhi with `nomics' nor Indira, Rajiv or Chidambaram. Not because they did not have any worthwhile economic thoughts but because the term wouldn't gel properly with their names. Ditto with Sinha. Though I would like to coin a new word and dedicate it to the FM for free — and if you ask me what it meant, I could say it stands for rollback regime — I am sure he would not like something like Sinhonomics. For that matter, Rangarajanomics would be a mouthful — as much as Thiruvananthapuram. However, if the present RBI chief wanted, I would suggest Bimalonomics instead of Jalanonomics, the trouble with the latter being that it could twist your tongue.

I have always felt that Tomonomics deserves a place in our erudite literature for Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer could show the converse of "food for work"; he offered the fence-whitewashing job in return for a half-eaten apple. I wouldn't be surprised if our self-appointed culture gurus spawn the idea of a "Ramonomics" to promise all goodies that could have existed when Ram ruled the land with Ayodhya as his headquarters.

While I am in no great hurry to marry my name to a beheaded word, I can suggest what one should consider before bandying his- or her-onomics. First, there should be some ideas — sufficiently and differently economic sounding — to tout about. Second, the person should be heading a big department, institution or at least glamorous enough to adorn cover pages of magazines.

There could be more rules; but let me first allay some of the frequent fears. Is it necessary that the term and all that hides behind it should have proved successful? No need. Your-onomics may not even have been tested, much less achieved any measure of value-addition.

Should the idea remain constant? No, you can change your theories and call them version 2.0. Incidentally, the zero is to warn about the bugs.

So, don't fret that you have not been able to cook up something to merit a Nobel or concocted a formula to name after you, nor derived a theorem to let the posterity speak of you. The trick lies in having an appropriate name, in the last place.

(The author can be reached at hindubusinessline@hotmail.com)

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