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A Life of Rare Richness
A fellow economist and friend looks back at Ashok Mitra's intellectual contributions and the wide range of his experiences, associations, and interests.
Ashok Mitra led a life of rare richness. Few people manage to have the range of experiences he had, meet the range of personalities he met and befriended, and pursue the range of interests he cultivated. This was partly, of course, because of his own persona, but partly it was also the period and the setting in which he grew up.
Born in East Bengal on 10 April 1928, he was old enough to follow directly the Red Army’s fight against Nazism, and the Battle of Stalingrad; to witness the last stages of India’s anti-colonial struggle, including the prelude to and the horrors of Partition; to watch the post-war communist revolutionary upsurge in Asia; and to participate in the intense intellectual, artistic, and cultural ferment of the time of which Bengal in particular was a major centre. A sensitive soul and a brilliant student, he was, not surprisingly, drawn to Marxism and the communist movement, to which he remained committed till the very end.
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