Ashok Mitra

With a rare clarity of vision, Prof. Ashok Mitra illuminates the complex trajectory of India's agrarian transition and the range of political arrangements which have underpinned it. In a tantalizing exercise in speculation, Prof. Mitra asks how long can the interest of the industrial bourgeoisie ignore the cost of a political coalition with a subsidy-demanding landed minority. In his second lecture Prof. Mitra traces the social origins of banking and shows that such origins lie in nothing more mysterious than power and privilege. Much used categories such as cost of capital and rate of interests are shorn of their apparently straightforward technical explanations and are planned within their proper perspectives.