scorecardresearch
Friday, March 29, 2024
Support Our Journalism
HomePoliticsWith Ashok Mitra’s passing, India loses one of its fiercest Marxist economists

With Ashok Mitra’s passing, India loses one of its fiercest Marxist economists

Follow Us :
Text Size:

The former West Bengal finance minister was a fiery politician, an equally zealous academician, and a proud Communist.

New Delhi: Ashok Mitra, the renowned Marxist economist and former finance minister of West Bengal, Mitra died at the age of 90 Tuesday, due to complications arising out of diarrhoea.

Mitra was known to be a fiery politician and an equally zealous academician. “I am not a gentleman. I am a Communist,” he had snapped to a bureaucrat in 1979, when he became a part of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

He earned his MA in economics from the Banaras Hindu University after graduating from the University of Dacca (now Dhaka). He was also an alumnus of the Delhi School of Economics in the 1950s when it was just established. He pursued his PhD from the Netherlands School of Economics under the mentorship of famous Dutch economist Jan Tinbergen in 1953. After this, he served at the United Nations and the Economic Development Institute in Washington DC, but soon came back to India to teach at the newly established Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

He came to Delhi and became the chairman of the Agricultural Prices Commission, after which he was made the chief economic advisor to the government of India in the finance ministry in 1970. He served in this position for two years, and advised then-PM Indira Gandhi on economic policies. He later wrote extensively, criticising Gandhi’s governance.

Mitra was a voracious writer and wrote a regular column called ‘Calcutta Diary’ and ‘From the Ramparts’ for the Economic and Political Weekly. He often wrote opinions for other publications and authored 20 books in Bengali, for which he also received the Sahitya Akademi award.

He joined the Left Front government under the leadership of chief minister Jyoti Basu and was appointed the finance minister in 1977. He held the position for a decade, and in 1980, he became famous for campaigning against the Centre’s fiscal policies as well as resisting the wave of populism in West Bengal itself. He quit the CPI(M) after an alleged spat with Basu; Mitra attributed this decision to his indifferent health. In his exit note to Basu, he wrote that his doctors had advised him a “stress-free existence”.

Mitra continued to write after quitting the party, and became an open critic and commentator of the Left Front government.

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp

Support Our Journalism

India needs fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism, packed with on-ground reporting. ThePrint – with exceptional reporters, columnists and editors – is doing just that.

Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you.

Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here.

Support Our Journalism

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular