The Finance Commission has played a critical role in India’s federal structure since 1952. Every five years, this constitutional body produces a report recommending what share of the Union Government’s divisible tax pool should be devolved to the states, and how this aggregate should be distributed among the different states, among other recommendations on fiscal governance. In between its appointment and submission of its Report, the Finance Commission tends to spend the intervening period in the relative secrecy of internal discussions and state visits. Despite the excitement about the Commissions in the media, and among the public, leaders and bureaucrats in states, little is publicly known about the rich experiences that the members and staff of the Commission gain while visiting all the states of our large and diverse country, and their interpersonal interactions.

Those Were the Days captures vignettes of such experiences of the 15th Finance Commission. It is a book not of history or economics or even secret deliberations within the Commission, but one that captures the joys of working as a team, a sense of discovery of the unity in diversity that is India and the great camaraderie that it enjoyed with leaders and civil servants in the different states.