Ashok Mitra

2023-07-06T02:44:53Z

42.110.136.235:

{{Short description|Indian politician}}
{{Use Indian English|date=August 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name = Ashok Mitra
|honorific_prefix = [[The Honourable]]
|honorific_suffix = [[Member of parliament|MP]]
|image =
|caption =
|birth_date = 10 April 1928
|birth_place = [[Dacca]], [[East Bengal]], [[British Raj]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|2018|5|1|1928|4|10}}
|death_place =
|office = [[Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha]]<br>for [[West Bengal]]
|term = 19 August 1993 – 18 August 1999
|office1 = [[Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India]]
|term1 = 1970–1972
|predecessor1 = VK Ramaswamy
|successor1 = [[Manmohan Singh]]
|office2 = [[Finance Minister]] of [[West Bengal]]
|term2 = 1977–1982, 1984-1987
|term3 = 1983–1987
|constituency3 = [[Jadavpur (Vidhan Sabha constituency)|Jadavpur]]
|office3 = [[Member of the Legislative Assembly (India)|Member of West Bengal Legislative Assembly]]
|predecessor3 = Dinesh Chandra Majumdar
|successor3 = [[Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee]]
|term4 = 1977–1982
|constituency4 = [[Rashbehari Avenue (Vidhan Sabha constituency)|Rashbehari Avenue]]
|predecessor4 = Lakshmi Kanta Bose
|successor4 = Hoimi Basu
|citizenship = [[India]]n
|fields = [[Economist]]
|alma_mater = [[University of Dacca]]<br>[[Benaras Hindu University]]<br>[[Delhi School of Economics]]<br>[[Hogeschool Rotterdam|Erasmus University Rotterdam]]
|awards = [[Sahitya Akademi Award]]
}}

'''Ashok Mitra''' ('''অশোক মিত্র''') (10 April 1928<ref name=book>{{cite book|author=Deepak Nayyar|title=Economics as Ideology and Experience: Essays in Honour of Ashok Mitra|publisher=Frank Cass|year=1998|page=xiii|isbn=0-7146-4723-3}}</ref> – 1 May 2018) was an Indian economist and Marxist politician. He was a chief economic adviser to the [[Government of India]] and later became finance minister of [[West Bengal]] and a member of the [[Rajya Sabha]].

==Early life and education==
After completing his graduation from the [[Dhaka University|University of Dacca]], he came to India following the [[partition of India]] in 1947.<ref name=book/> Although he attended postgraduate classes in economics at the [[University of Calcutta]], he was refused admission there. He moved to [[Banaras Hindu University]] where he earned an M.A. in economics. He joined the newly established [[Delhi School of Economics]] in the early 1950s. Later, he attended the [[Institute of Social Studies]] in the [[Netherlands]].<ref name=book/> Under the guidance of Professor [[Jan Tinbergen]] of the [[Hogeschool Rotterdam|Erasmus University Rotterdam]], he was awarded a doctorate in economics there in 1953.<ref name=book/>

==Career==
===Academic===
Mitra taught as a lecturer in economics at the [[University of Lucknow]] for two years before proceeding to the Netherlands to complete his PhD thesis. He taught at the [[United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific|UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East]] in [[Bangkok]], [[Thailand]] before returning to Delhi in 1961.<ref name=book/> 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. He joined the faculty of the [[Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta]] in the mid-1960s as a professor of economics. In the early-1990s he became the chairman of the [[Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta]].<ref name=book/>

===Political===
After returning to India he accepted the professorship in economics at the newly established [[Indian Institute of Management Calcutta]].<ref name=book/> He was the chief economic adviser and later chairman of the Agricultural Prices Commission, both of the Government of India. He was [[Finance Minister|finance minister]] of [[West Bengal]] from 1977–87.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030816/nation.htm#7|title=Mitra flays CPM for 'patronising' US capitalists|work=The Tribune|date=16 August 2003|author=Gupta, Subhrangshu|access-date=20 August 2019}}</ref> In the mid-1990s he became a member of the [[Rajya Sabha]] and was [[chairman]] of the Parliament's Standing Committee on Industry and Commerce.

==Scholarship==
He authored the "Calcutta Diary" in ''[[Economic and Political Weekly]]'' 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''.<ref name=book/> 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'').<ref name=book/>

He founded a journal entitled ''Arek Rakam''.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/ashok-mitra-marxist-economist-dead-5160641/|title=Ashok Mitra (1928-2018): Subversive devil|work=[[The Indian Express]]|date=3 May 2018|access-date=20 August 2019}}</ref>

==Death and family==
Mitra was married to Gouri, a daughter of an ICS judge, who died aged 79 in May 2008.<ref>{{cite news|title=Ashok Mitra bereaved|work=[[The Hindu]]|date=3 May 2008|url=https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/Ashok-Mitra-bereaved/article15215267.ece|access-date=20 August 2019}}</ref> He died on 1 May 2018 at the age of 90.<ref>{{cite news|work=[[Business Standard]]|title=Veteran Marxist economist and politician Ashok Mitra, 89, is dead|date=1 May 2018|url=https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/veteran-marxist-economist-and-politician-ashok-mitra-89-is-dead-118050100237_1.html|access-date=20 August 2019}}</ref> Ashok Mitra is survived by his only sibling, Sreelata Ghosh (née Mitra), sister.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite news|title=The Importance of Being Ashok Mitra|author=Chakravarty, Suhash|work=Outlook|date=19 March 2007|url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/the-importance-of-being-ashok-mitra/234152|access-date=20 August 2019}}

{{Ministry of Finance (India)}}
{{West Bengal Legislative Assembly2}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitra, Ashok}}
[[Category:1928 births]]
[[Category:2018 deaths]]
[[Category:Communist Party of India (Marxist) politicians from West Bengal]]
[[Category:Marxian economists]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian economists]]
[[Category:Indian memoirists]]
[[Category:Scientists from West Bengal]]
[[Category:University of Dhaka alumni]]
[[Category:Banaras Hindu University alumni]]
[[Category:University of Delhi faculty]]
[[Category:University of Calcutta faculty]]
[[Category:Indian Institute of Management Calcutta faculty]]
[[Category:University of Lucknow faculty]]
[[Category:University of Calcutta alumni]]
[[Category:Rajya Sabha members from West Bengal]]
[[Category:Scholars from West Bengal]]
[[Category:West Bengal MLAs 1977–1982]]
[[Category:West Bengal MLAs 1982–1987]]
[[Category:Chief Economic Advisers to the Government of India]]

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Ashok Mitra