Dr. Ashok Mitra breathed his last on the 1st of May at a Kolkata nursing home. He had turned 90 on April 10 and had remained active as a writer and editor till the end of his life. An economist by academic training, and a committed Marxist all through his eventful journey, Mitra had served both as a chief economic advisor at the Centre and as the Finance Minister in the early phase of the Left Front Government in West Bengal. But he will also be fondly remembered as a great and prolific writer, his regular columns – especially ‘Calcutta Diary’ in Economic and Political Weekly and ‘Cutting Corners’ in the Kolkata-based English daily The Telegraph – and his analytical and autobiographical writings were read and admired by a large readership. After parting ways with the CPI(M) and the Left Front Government, he remained steadfast as a Marxist critic while never showing any sympathy for the bourgeois opposition. His firm voice against the forcible acquisition of fertile land in Singur distinguished him from the pool of pro-CPI(M) Marxist economists who could never muster the courage to criticize the CPI(M)’s surrender to the neo-liberal economic paradigm in West Bengal. CPI(ML) Central Committee and Liberation pay heartfelt tribute to this great Marxist intellectual.
