Jean Drèze

Jean Drèze is a Belgian-born Indian economist and activist. He gave up his Belgian citizenship to work in India. Exams ask about his law, his award and his citizenship.

1.1 Where was he born and trained?

Jean Drèze was born on 22 January 1959 in Leuven, Belgium. His father, Jacques Drèze, was an economist at CORE, a research centre at the Université catholique de Louvain.

He studied at the University of Essex, in England. He then earned a PhD at the Indian Statistical Institute in New Delhi.

1.2 When did he become Indian?

He has lived in India since 1979. In 2002 he became an Indian citizen. That meant giving up his Belgian citizenship.

2.1 What was the London squat?

Drèze taught at the London School of Economics in the 1980s. It was the only full-time paid job he ever had.

In December 1988 he joined friends who took over an empty building for the homeless. He lived there for almost three months. His diary became a short book, No. 1 Clapham Road: The Diary of a Squat. It came out under the pseudonym Jean Delarue.

2.2 What was the Palanpur study?

Palanpur is a village in Uttar Pradesh. For one study, Drèze lived there like the villagers. He farmed a plot and raised animals.

He wrote about it with Naresh Sharma. Their paper “Sharecropping in a North Indian Village” appeared in 1996.

3.1 What was his role in MGNREGA?

Drèze is widely credited as one of the drafters of the rural employment guarantee law, MGNREGA. The Economic Times called him an author of the draft in 2004. The Hindustan Times calls him its architect.

Do not call him the only author. Parliament passed the Act through the usual process.

3.2 Which campaigns did he join?

He was a key figure in the Right to Information campaign. He was also a champion of the Right to Food campaign.

3.3 What did he do in the NAC and PROBE?

He served on the National Advisory Council, or NAC, under the UPA government. His first term lasted about one year. In June 2005 he opted out, citing other commitments. His second term lasted about two years.

He was also part of the small team behind the 1999 PROBE Report. It surveyed primary education in northern India.

4.1 What did the Gulf peace camp show?

During the 1990-91 Gulf War, Drèze joined a peace camp on the Iraq-Saudi border. In 1992 he wrote an early report with Haris Gazdar on hunger in Iraq.

The camp also led to a book, War and Peace in the Gulf. Bela Bhatia, Drèze and Kathy Kelly edited it.

4.2 Where has he lived?

The press calls him the “barefoot economist”. The label points to his simple life. In Delhi he and Bela Bhatia lived in a one-room house in a jhuggi.

He was based in Delhi from 1993 to 2002. He then lived in Allahabad until 2014. He now lives in Ranchi.

5.1 What did he write with Amartya Sen?

Sen is a Nobel laureate and Drèze’s long-time collaborator. Their books include Hunger and Public Action (1989) and An Uncertain Glory (2013).

Drèze has also written with Angus Deaton on nutrition and poverty. With Nicholas Stern he wrote on policy reform. He sits on Tamil Nadu’s Economic Advisory Council, headed by Esther Duflo.

6.1 What is the GiRA award?

On 5 June 2026, Drèze received the Global Inequality Research Award, or GiRA. He got it at the World Inequality Conference in Paris. Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty presented it.

It was the second edition of the award. Bina Agarwal and James K. Boyce won the first one, in 2024.

6.2 What replaced MGNREGA?

MGNREGA was repealed on 1 July 2026. The VB-G RAM G Act, 2025 replaced it. The Centre notified the rollout on 11 May 2026.

The new law guarantees 125 days of work a year. MGNREGA guaranteed 100 days.

7.1 Which traps appear in exams?

Keep these apart:

• Drèze is a drafter of MGNREGA. He is not its only author.
• He is a citizen of India since 2002, not a foreign adviser.
• Jacques Drèze is his father, not his brother.
• MGNREGA’s rules and its successor Act belong to a separate article.