Ashok Mitra (10 April 1928 – 1 May 2018) was an Indian economist and Marxist politician. He was a chief economic adviser to the

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

and later became finance minister of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

and a member of the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

Early life and education

After completing his graduation from the

University of Dacca The University of Dhaka (also known as Dhaka University, or DU) is a public research university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is the oldest university in Bangladesh. The university opened its doors to students on July 1st 1921. Currently it ...

, he came to India following the

partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...

in 1947. Although he attended postgraduate classes in economics at the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate State university (India), state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered ...

, he was refused admission there. He moved to

Banaras Hindu University Banaras Hindu University (BHU) IAST: kāśī hindū viśvavidyālaya IPA: /kaːʃiː hɪnd̪uː ʋɪʃwəʋid̪jaːləj/), is a collegiate, central, and research university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, and founded in 1916 ...

where he earned an M.A. in economics. He joined the newly established

Delhi School of Economics Delhi School of Economics (DSE), popularly referred to as "D School", is a Higher Educational Institution within the University of Delhi. The Delhi School of Economics is situated in University of Delhi's North Campus in Maurice Nagar. Establ ...

in the early 1950s. Later, he attended the

Institute of Social Studies The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam is an independent and international graduate school of policy-oriented critical social science. ISS was established in 1952 by Dutch universities and the Neth ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Under the guidance of Professor

Jan Tinbergen Jan Tinbergen (; ; 12 April 19039 June 1994) was a Dutch economist who was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969, which he shared with Ragnar Frisch for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of ...

of the

Erasmus University Rotterdam Erasmus University Rotterdam (abbreviated as ''EUR'', nl, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam ) is a public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century humanist ...

, he was awarded a doctorate in economics there in 1953.

Career

Academic

Mitra taught as a lecturer in economics at the

University of Lucknow The University of Lucknow (informally known as Lucknow University, and LU) is a public state university based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Founded in 1920, the University of Lucknow is one of the oldest government owned institutions of higher edu ...

for two years before proceeding to the Netherlands to complete his PhD thesis. He taught at the

UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is one of the five regional commissions under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It was established in order to increase economic ...

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

, before returning to Delhi in 1961. He joined the Economic Development Institute in Washington, DC, as a faculty of economics during the early 1960s. He also worked for the World Bank in the 1960s. In the early-1990s he became the chairman of the

Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC) is a social science and humanities research and teaching institute in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. History Established in 1973 jointly by the Indian Council of Social Science Research and ...

Political

After returning to India he accepted the professorship in economics at the newly established

Indian Institute of Management Calcutta Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM Calcutta or IIM-C) is a public business school located in Joka, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was the first Indian Institute of Management to be established, and has been recognized as an Institut ...

. He was the chief economic adviser and later chairman of the Agricultural Prices Commission, both of the Government of India. He was

finance minister A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...

from 1977–87. In the mid-1990s he became a member of the

and was

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

of the Parliament's Standing Committee on Industry and Commerce.

Scholarship

He authored the "Calcutta Diary" in ''

Economic and Political Weekly The ''Economic and Political Weekly'' (''EPW'') is a weekly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all social sciences, and is published by the Sameeksha Trust. In January 2018, academic Gopal Guru was named the new Editor of the journal. Guru wil ...

'' and "Terms of Trade and Class Relations". He contributed articles regularly to the Calcutta-based national daily newspaper, ''The Telegraph''. He also wrote short stories in Bengali. He was conferred the Sahitya Academi Award in 1996 for his Essays entitled ''Tal Betal''. His publications include ''China-Issues in Development'' and ''From the Ramparts, Prattler's Tale: Recollections of a Contrary Marxist'' (which has also been published in Bengali as ''Apila Chapala''). He founded a journal entitled ''Arek Rakam''.

Death and family

Mitra was married to Gouri, who died aged 79 in May 2008. He died on 1 May 2018 at the age of 90. Ashok Mitra is survived by his only sibling, Sreelata Ghosh (née Mitra), sister.