COMMENTARY

was so outstanding that Mukerji made A Life of Rare Richness an effort to fi nd out who the author of the script was, and having located Mitra, offered him a job at Lucknow University. Prabhat Patnaik At Lucknow, Mitra came into close contact with fi gures like Feroze Gandhi A fellow economist and friend shok Mitra led a life of rare rich- and Acharya Narendra Dev. The latter, a looks back at Ashok Mitra’s ness. Few people manage to have renowned socialist, was the vice chan- intellectual contributions and the A the range of experiences he had, cellor of Lucknow University at that time; meet the range of personalities he met he would pick up Ashok Mitra on Sunday wide range of his experiences, and befriended, and pursue the range of mornings to take him home for break- associations, and interests. interests he cultivated. This was partly, fast and discussions. Mitra used to remi- of course, because of his own persona, nisce that his Lucknow days were among but partly it was also the period and the the most pleasant he ever had. He would setting in which he grew up. fi nish teaching in the morning and then Born in on 10 April 1928, spend the rest of the day gossiping in he was old enough to follow directly the the coffee house in Hazratganj. Shaking Red Army’s fi ght against Nazism, and the off at last what he would call his “lotus- Battle of Stalingrad; to witness the last eater’s existence,” he went to the Nether- stages of ’s anti-colonial stru ggle, lands to work on his doctorate with Jan including the prelude to and the horrors Tinbergen on the theory of distribution. of Partition; to watch the post-war com- The thesis, The Share of Wages in National munist revolutionary upsurge in Asia; and Income, was published and brought him to participate in the intense intellectual, much acclaim. artistic, and cultural ferment of the time He then did teaching and research of which Bengal in particular was a major stints at a number of institutions after- centre. A sensitive soul and a brilliant wards, inc luding the National Council of student, he was, not surprisingly, drawn Applied Economic Research, Delhi; the to Marxism and the communist move- UN Economic Commission for Asia and ment, to which he remained committed the Far East in (where he inter- till the very end. acted closely with Nicholas Kaldor); and At University where he studied the Economic Development Institute, Economics, he was exposed not only to Washington, DC; before joining the Indian the infl uence of renowned teachers like Institute of Management (IIM) at Kolkata Amiya Kumar Dasgupta (who had left at the invitation of K T Chandy, a one- Dhaka a little earlier, but whose infl uence time staunch Leftist in London who had lingered) and Samar Ranjan Sen but also become its director. Chandy wanted him to luminaries like Satyen Bose (who to build up the social science division of was a hostel warden). He became active the IIM; and Mitra, recruiting several in the Student Federation in Dhaka and distinguished academics, was so succe ss- remained active there even after Partition, ful in doing so that the IIM Kolkata even representing Pakistan at an inter- remains to this day, to many people’s national meet of progressive youth held bemusement, one of the outstanding in India. But he had to emigrate to India social science centres of the country. shortly afterwards, before he could From IIM he moved to become chair- complete his MA examinations. person of the Agricultural Prices Commis- It was where sion, which was established in the wake the grand old teacher from Dhaka, Amiya of the acute food crisis of the mid-1960s. Dasgupta, had migrated earlier, which He considered that job to have been his fi nally allowed him to sit for the MA most rewarding one, but was soon asked Prabhat Patnaik ([email protected]) is examinations. Not only did he pass the by P N Haksar, then principal secretary professor emeritus at the Centre for Economic exam with fl ying colours, but his essay to and the architect of the Studies and Planning, script, which was evaluated by Dhurjati “left course” she was following, to move University, New Delhi. Prasad Mukerji, then teaching at Lucknow, to the Ministry of Finance as the chief

12 MAY 19, 2018 vol lIiI no 20 EPW Economic & Political Weekly COMMENTARY economic advisor. Mitra could have unleashing of terror in and forever engaged in increasing their share settled down thereafter to a cosy and in the ruthless suppression of the 1974 of the total output. Towards this end, uneventful bureaucratic career, but he Railway strike, “Calcutta Diary” played they use not only their economic power resigned within two years, unwilling to a remarkable role in overcoming despond- but the state as well; and their instru- function within a regime that was let- ency and infusing courage and hope in ments include not only the relative prices, ting loose a veritable reign of terror its readers. I know many people, espe- that is, the terms of trade of their goods against the left in West Bengal. cially in government, who were not par- vis-à-vis those of the others, but also taxes, Mitra’s frequent change of jobs, which ticularly interested in the esoteric issues subsidies, and other policies. undoubtedly contributed to the richness of economics or sociology, subscribed to It followed, therefore, that the realm of of his life by bringing him an ever- the EPW just to read “Calcutta Diary.” the economy could not be separated from widening circle of friends and ever newer Mitra also threw himself into academic the realm of the polity, and that prices experience, has often been put down to work. He used an Indian Council of Social were determined, not just indirectly by a certain restlessness that is supposed to Science Research (ICSSR) fellowship to class struggle, as Piero Sraffa had sug- have characterised him. In fact, when he write Terms of Trade and Class Relations, gested in the case of free competition, was appointed to the Ministry of Finance, which took over from where The Share of but quite directly. It is not Adam Smith’s his communist reputation had so fright- Wages in National Income had left off. He “invisible hand” that determines prices, ened that particular bastion of conserv- gave a series of lectures at the newly as the economics discipline teaches, but atism that several of its offi cials went to established Centre for Economic Studies the very visible process of class struggle. I G Patel, Mitra’s close personal friend, and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru Univer- From this, Mitra drew a corollary for to seek his advice on how they could cope sity (JNU), which I had just joined, out- India. The bourgeoisie here, for establi- with him; Patel reportedly told them not lining the ideas of the new book. It was a shing its hegemony, depended upon the to worry since Mitra never stayed in the memorable academic event, attended by landed interests to mobilise for it the same job for long. hundreds of students and faculty, and rural votes within our system of electoral Though Patel was correct in this in- was remembered long afterwards. democracy. In return, the latter demanded stance, Mitra’s short stays at various jobs and obtained an increase in the terms were not due to some peripatetic pro- Academic Contribution of trade for their agricultural products. pensity, but because he was a person of The starting point of his academic work This entire arrangement, however, lead- extremely strong principles, who could was Kalecki’s theory of distribution, which ing to a secular increase in the terms of never put up with any transgressions had explained the share of wages in trade for agriculture, tended to squeeze from those principles. This commitment to national income in terms of two factors, the real wages and the profi t-margins of prin ciples occasionally came into confl ict the “degree of monopoly” that underlay the industrial (or more generally non- with his party loyalty too; it contributed the profi t mark-up, and the ratio of raw agricultural) sector, leading eventually to the tense and uneasy relationship material prices to the unit wage-costs. to industrial atrophy and popular anger. which he had with the Communist Party Kalecki’s theory, however, had given the The question was: what exit route could of India (Marxist)—CPI(M)—all his life. impression that the pricing behaviour the system have from this cul- de-sac? In Following his resignation from the of oligopolistic fi rms, which gover ned the discussion at JNU that followed government, Mitra threw himself into the distribution of income, depended on Mitra’s presentation, it was suggested writing his column “Calcutta Diary” for technical considerations. And this raised that one possible exit route could be the Economic & Political Weekly. He had a basic question: if money wages rose the jettisoning of democracy altogether. been associated with this journal from through trade union action, then for a Interestingly, within months of this dis- its very inception, when it was called the given mark-up (ignoring raw materials cussion, an Emergency had been decla- Economic Weekly, as its founding editor, for the moment), there would be an equi- red in the country! Sachin Chaudhuri, had been a close family proportionate increase in prices, so that In retrospect, while Mitra’s general friend from his Dhaka days. Chaudhuri’s real wages would not change; but if trade posing of the distributional issue appears quarters in Bombay’s Churchill Chambers union action was so singularly incapable powerful, his specifi c reading of the con- were a home away from home for Mitra. of increasing real wages (except when the tradictions of the Indian economy, in terms He regularly wrote editorials for it, quite burden could be passed on to raw mate- of a politically determined steady shift apart from his columns (whenever he was rial producers), then why were the capi- in the terms of trade in favour of agricul- not in any government), and served as a talists so bitterly opposed to trade unions? ture, causing both economic atrophy and a member of the Sameeksha Trust for years. Mitra’s answer in The Share of Wages squeeze on workers’ real wages, seems Throughout his itinerant life, the EPW in National Income was to suggest that apposite only for that particular period. remained one institution towards which the mark-up was not technically deter- Indeed Sukhamoy Chakravarty had put his affection never dimmed. mined but was itself dependent upon the forward a similar analysis of the contra- In the dark days of the early 1970s strength of trade unions. In Terms of dictions of the Indian economy aro und when Indira Gandhi’s authoritarianism Trade and Class Relations he carried this the same time. This only undersco res was on the rise, manifesting itself in the idea further. Different social classes are the importance of that specifi c context.

Economic & Political Weekly EPW MAY 19, 2018 vol lIiI no 20 13 COMMENTARY The Emergency itself marked the notably in the Economist of London on all public investment; it was partly also beginning of a shift in the terms of trade (against which the Indian High Commis- because of a widely-prevalent misunder- against agriculture. And things have of sion there had desperately organised standing that the problem of Bengal was course changed dramatically since then “counter-contributions”). He returned to not “too little water” but “too much with the adoption of neo-liberal policies. India after the Emergency and in the water” (as the 1926 Royal Commission Neo-liberalism has meant a squeeze on assembly elections in West Bengal in on Agriculture put it). the agricultural sector, taking into account 1977, won the Rashbehari Avenue seat in The Left Front government resumed not just prices but a whole range of policy Kolkata as a CPI(M)-supported candidate. the process of land redistribution that measures, as he had suggested one should That was the beginning of an altogether had been started earlier by the two United do; the landed interests, which have new career for Mitra; he was inducted as Front governments of the state, recorded meanwhile diversifi ed their activities the Minister for Finance, Development and sharecroppers through “operation barga,” away from agriculture to a large extent, Planning in the fi rst Left Front Govern- enforced that the crop was harvested escape this squeeze, and can even gain ment of West Bengal under the leader- only by the one who had tilled the land, from it in many ways. Taking the Mitra ship of . ensured that the landowners gave a picture, pertinent at the time it was The principal achievement of the Left receipt to the tenant against their share drawn, as refl ecting contemporary reality Front government in West Bengal was to of the crop, and induced the banks to in India, would be stretching things, a break what has been called “the agrarian give loans against that receipt (which conclusion that he himself would doubt- impasse” that had affl icted the entire was proof of the tenant’s right to land). It less have endorsed. region for a long time. The impasse was carried out substantial devolution of a result both of the agrarian structure resources and decision-making to pan- Emergency and After that had developed in the colonial period, chayats, to which elections had not been Since he had been a fi erce and outspoken and the complete absence of any public held for years but which were now con- critic of Indira Gandhi’s authoritarianism, investment in irrigation and rural infra- stituted. And it stepped up quite signifi - Mitra was advised by friends to leave structure during that period. This absence cantly the outlay on irrigation and rural the country after the Emergency was of investment was partly because under infrastructure despite being extremely declared. He did so and spent the entire the Permanent Settlement, where the land short of fi nancial resources, and having period in exile, teaching at various places revenue for the colonial government to devote much of even these limited and writing against the excesses of the was fi xed, it would not fetch the mini- resources to the power sector where Emergency in several journals, including mum rate of return that was demanded there was an acute shortage.

WORK at EPW Assistant Editors The Economic and Political Weekly intends appointing two Assistant Editors. The position offers an opportunity to engage with a range of writing and research on economics, politics and the social sciences. The responsibilities will involve writing editorials, reviewing and editing submissions, and tracking news and research. The selected candidates will commission commentaries and articles for publication, interact with writers who seek to publish in the journal, and collaborate in organising special issues. They will also have opportunities to write articles and review books. We are looking for those with research and/or journalistic experience of at least three years, and publications (research writing/reportage). A PhD/MPhil will be preferable. A strong command over English is essential since editing will be an important part of the work. An awareness of current affairs and contemporary debates in the social sciences will be useful. A familiarity with digital publishing will be welcome. The selected candidates will be based in Mumbai. The EPW tries to, but cannot, match the salary scales of those in comparable positions in educational and research institutions. It makes up by offering an opportunity to work in a unique institution which encourages its staffers to develop their skills and interests. House rent allowance, provident fund contribution, medical insurance and leave travel allowance are provided. Interested candidates should send in their curriculum vitae along with a covering letter addressed to the editor at [email protected] . The last date for submission of applications is 26 May 2018. The selection will be made on the basis of personal interviews and/or a videoconference. The selected candidates should be in a position to join at the earliest. We will give preference to candidates from marginalised backgrounds who meet our requirements.

14 MAY 19, 2018 vol lIiI no 20 EPW Economic & Political Weekly COMMENTARY Mitra, along with his friend Arun Ghosh, His resignation as fi nance minister of considered “one of us.” This contributed whom he induced after retirement to join West Bengal in 1986 on a point of principle to an uneasy and tense relationship, but the State Planning Board, and Satyabrata relating to the state’s education policy, one that nonetheless endured. Sen, played a major role in all these devel- pushed the issue of centre–state relations Even after he had resigned from the opments, with the support of Jyoti Basu further into the background. And the party and the cabinet, Mitra was nomi- and Promode Dasgupta. As a result, West neo-liberal period almost obliterated it nated by the party to a seat Bengal became for a while, the fastest- through the simple expedient of deliber- in the 1990s when the neo-liberal policies growing among all the states of the ately causing a debt trap for the states, were being introduced by the Narasimha country in terms of agricultural output, a and then arm-twisting them into sub- Rao government. He was a powerful remarkable turnaround from its long mission. The introduction of the goods critic of these policies in the Rajya Sabha, stagnation. And this growth moreover and services tax (GST), a supreme act of and was listened to with great respect occurred within an agrarian structure in centralisation that arguably even violates by all. He played a major role in organis- which there had been a change in the the “basic structure” of the Constitution, ing opposition to neo-liberalism all over balance of class forces, with the old jotedars was virtually the last straw. the country through his writings and having lost considerable ground. These Mitra’s last days were spent in the speeches, at a time when few understood phenomena in turn generated signifi cant fervent hope that the GST would be its import. He also became the chair- multiplier effects of their own at the local challenged in the Supreme Court as being person of the Parliamentary Standing level in terms of employment and output. anti-constitutional; but legal opinion that Committee on Commerce and Industry, was consulted at the time was lukewarm, and in that capacity launched a powerful Centre–State Relations on the grounds that unless some state resistance against the new intellectual The contrast between the resources governments came forward as plaintiffs, property rights regime, which, the United required by the state government to fulfi l litigation only by a group of public intel- States (US) multinationals were trying its obligations and the resources available lectuals would carry little weight. No to impose upon the world through the to it, prompted him to emphasise the state government, alas, retained by then World Trade Organization. The report need for a reordering of centre–state the spunk to challenge the GST. that he authored was a unanimous one, relations, especially in the fi na ncial a testimony to his persuasive skills and sphere. Within the constituent assembly A Staunch Public Critic the respect he commanded among all itself K T Shah’s demand that the term Mitra’s resignation from the fi nance political parties. federal republic be explicitly mentioned ministership of West Bengal was only When the Left Front government in the Constitution had been turned one episode in the somewhat turbulent laun ched its industrialisation drive, Mitra down. And in practice, there had been history of his relationship with the CPI(M). once again became a strong public critic considerable centralisation of power and Despite the turbulence of this history, of that government, taking it to task for resources since then. Championing the however, the relationship endured, as the concession it was giving to domestic rights of the states came as a breath each side knew it would. For Mitra, the and foreign big business, and for alien- of fresh air and gave the left a remark- confl ict between his commitment to ating the peasantry that had stood by it able opportunity to mobilise opposition certain principles he held dear and his for decades. His criticism, characteristi- forces, and state governments run by loyalty to the party that might ride cally, was trenchant, since Mitra was opposition parties. roughshod over these principles on never one to mince his words: he once Mitra played a major role in organising occasions, was a perennial source of wrote a piece criticising the concessions a series of conclaves of opposition chief personal crisis. His resignation as fi nance being given by the Left Front govern- ministers, the last one being in Srinagar. In minister in 1986 was an expression, and ment to the Tatas on the proposed Nano the political sphere that was the height of a resolution, of such a personal crisis. plant, titled “Santa Claus Visits the Tatas.” the infl uence of the left, Basu was asked At the same time, he was clear that any And yet it did not mean a break with in the mid-1990s to lead the United Front left praxis in India that bypassed the the party. In 2011, when there were government but could not do so because CPI(M), which was by far the largest left assembly elections in West Bengal, he of opposition to the idea within the CPI(M) force in the country, no matter how addressed public meetings in support of itself. In his view, however, a more favour- well- intentioned it may be, could make party candidates. When he passed away able conjuncture for Basu becoming the little headway. He never therefore parted on 1 May, the party was actively involved Prime Minister of the country had been in company with the CPI(M), no matter in organising his last journey, a fact that the 1980s (when Basu himself had also how deeply he felt about his differences would have cheered him greatly. been younger); but the assassination of with the party. Indira Gandhi had altered that conjunc- Likewise on the side of the party, no A Moral Voice ture. That assassination also defl ected matter how critical Mitra had been of it, When India had approached the Inter- attention from the issue of centre–state there was a clear appreciation that he national Monetary Fund for an extended relations, notwithstanding Basu’s and would never go against it. No matter facility loan in the early 1980s, Mitra, Mitra’s dogged pursuit of it. what he said and wrote, he was always then fi nance minister of West Bengal, had

Economic & Political Weekly EPW MAY 19, 2018 vol lIiI no 20 15 COMMENTARY organised a massive intellectual protest a little to his anarchist philosophical of the superstructure, during much of his against it. I remember a conversation position and his consequent opposition to active life. This is a “problem” that neo- with Joan Robinson at the time, when communism (though providing practical liberalism has addressed with assiduity, she named a couple of well-known Indian support to communist regimes against even to the point of uniting with the economists and asked me if they had US machinations). Indeed, one of the Hindutva ideology. protested against the loan. When I said no, signs of capitalist development, in the And since what an individual is, is her question was: “Who then represents intellectual realm, is the marginalisa- socially determined to a signifi cant extent, the moral voice at this moment?” I men- tion of all those who are considered it is doubtful if there will ever be another tioned Mitra, to which she responded, close to the organised left. Ashok Mitra. Even a person having his “that is all right then.” Mitra’s standing as a moral voice in qualities of head and heart, were it at all The fact that he acted for years as the the intellectual world arose partly from possible, would not get the same hearing moral voice of the country is not a matter his refusal to compromise on principles and the same respect under neo-liberal of surprise. The surprise is that he was even in deference to party loyalty, and capitalism as Mitra had got in an earlier widely accepted as such despite his prox- the party’s tacit acceptance of this fact. era. With all his criticism of the Nehru- imity to an organised communist party. But it also arose from the fact that capi- vian era, defi ned broadly as the pre- Even the acceptability of Noam Chom- talist development in India had not pro- neo-liberal period, he was very much a sky in the US as a moral voice owes not ceeded far enough, at least in the realm product of it.

16 MAY 19, 2018 vol lIiI no 20 EPW Economic & Political Weekly