Most Indians don't know this, but the Dreze family are literally academic royalty in Belgium. Jean's brother the late Xavier Dreze was a highly regarded Marketing professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. He was one of the very very few who could do both modeling and consumer behavior research. He died very young at age 48. His obituary says he was a true polymath with multiple academic and sporting talents. Jean's father the late Jacques Dreze was an economist at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He was a highly regarded economist and the first president of the European Economic Association. He has collaborated with nobel laureates Robert Aumann and Franco Modigliani and his publication record is comparable with the best in the field. Jean Dreze could have had a very cushy life with his family legacy, white skin and European passport. Even in India, he could have been a social butterfly flitting in and out of five star hotels and running think tanks funded hy veated interests. Instead, he took Indian citizenship, learnt Hindi and roughs it out in rural Jharkhand. He designed many schemes and his footprint is all over Indian economic policy. You may like him or hate him. But Jean Dreze is more Indian than anyone who was born Indian, including you and me. He chose to be Indian. And he has dedicated his life to India. Think of this the next time some illiterate journalist asks "Who is Jean Dreze?"