യാത്ര

ജീവന്റെ യാത്ര പ്രണയത്തിന്റെ പാതയില്‍
പ്രണയമോ ജീവന്റെ യാത്രയുടെ പാതയില്‍
സീതയാം ആര്യ പുത്രിയെ കവര്‍ന്ന രാവണന്‍
തേടിയതെന്ത്, പ്രണയമോ, സീതയുടെ ഉടലോ?
കല്യാണ സൌഗന്ധികം തേടിയ ഭീമന്‍ തേടിയതാരെ
വെറും പുഷ്പമോ കൃഷ്ണയുടെ പ്രേമ ഹര്മ്യമോ?
കാളി ദാസന്റെ ശാകുന്തളം തേടിയതാരെ വെറും
ദുഷ്യന്തനാം മന്നനോ ശകുന്തളയുടെ പ്രണയമോ?
കുമാരനും, ലീലയും, ചണ്ഡാളയും ആനന്ദ ഭിക്ഷുവും
തേടുവതാരെ, ഗുരുവാം പ്രണയമോ , മോക്ഷമോ?
ഒട്ടിയ വയറുമായ് കടിപിടി കൂടുന്ന കോലങ്ങളെങ്ങും
തിരയുന്നതെന്തേ, റൊട്ടിയോ ജീവന്റെ പ്രണയമോ?

മൂട്ട പുരാണം

കിടക്കയില്‍ കുരുതി നിണത്തിന്‍
ചൂര് തേടുന്ന മാടന്റെ വരവായ്
മണത്തെത്തുന്ന മാടനായ് മൂട്ട
ചോരയുടെ ചുവന്ന നിറവും
കുടിച്ചവന്റെ കറുത്ത പുള്ളിയും
പേറുന്ന പ്രശ്നമാണീ മൂട്ട

കുലം മുടിപ്പിന്റെ പുതിയ വഴികളില്‍
കുതിച്ചു കൈകള്‍ പലവുരി ചുവരില്‍
തെറിച്ചു കൈകളാല്‍ വരച്ചു ചുവരുകള്‍
ചുവന്ന അതിരുകള്‍ നിറഞ്ഞ ദേശങ്ങള്‍
പടര്‍ന്നു ചോരതന്‍ പുതിയ ചിത്രങ്ങള്‍
വരച്ചതോ പാവം മൂട്ടതന്‍ ജീവനാല്‍

സിദ്ദിക്ക്

ജനന മരണങ്ങളുടെ നീളമാണ് ജീവിതമെങ്കില്‍
സുഖ ദുഖങ്ങളുടെ തുകയാണ് സ്വപ്നങ്ങലെങ്കില്‍
ജീവനില്ലാത്ത സ്വപ്നങ്ങളും സ്വപ്നങ്ങളില്ലാത്ത ജീവനും
പേറുന്നതാരാണ് ശവങ്ങളോ, ശവമഞ്ഞ്ജംങ്ങളോ ?

തീവണ്ടിയുടെ കൊലവിളി

കൂകി വിളിക്കുന്ന തീവണ്ടി യുടെ നിലവിളി
അഷ്ടമുടിയിലുയര്‍ന്ന നിലവിളിയുടെ അലകളായ്
കായലുകള്‍ ആറുകള്‍ പിന്നിട്ട നിലവിളി
പാളങ്ങള്‍ തെന്നിച്ചു നിപതിച്ച ബോഗികള്‍
പെരുമണ്ണിലും പിന്തുടര്‍ന്ന ആര്‍തനാദമായ്
ഓരോ നിലവിളിയുമോരോ കൊലവിളിയായ് ....

റൂമിയും അന്വേഷണവും
അബൂബക്കരിലൂടെ നീളുന്നു...
മുഹമ്മദിന്റെ ഉള്‍കാഴ്ചകള്‍
പ്രണയമാകുന്ന ഗാനമാകുന്നു...
ഗുരുവിലേക്കുള്ള നീണ്ട യാത്രയില്‍
ബുദ്ധനും ഈസയും കൂട്ടായ്...
ഉപനിഷത്തും തത്വജ്ഞാനവും
അര്‍ഥി തന്‍ പാന്താവായ് ...
റാബിയായും റൂമിയും സൂഫിസവും
പ്രണയത്തിന്റെ വഴികളായ്...
അര്കനെ പ്രണയിച്ച സൂര്യകാന്തി
നിന്‍ പ്രഭയില്‍ ഞാന്‍ എരിഞ്ഞടങ്ങീ ...

സി ഈ എസ് പി യിലെ വിധ്യാര്തികള്‍ പ്രൊഫസര്‍ പ്രഭാത് പട്നായിക്കുമായ് സംസാരിക്കുന്നു

Interview with professor Prabhat Patnaik

1. Do you think that the experience of the global economic crisis of 2008-9 raises fundamental questions vis-a-vis mainstream economic theory?

Yest it does. Current mainstream economic theory has never reckoned with the possibility of “involuntary unemployment: a la Keynes, while the chief hallmark of the crisis is the existence of extraordinarily high levels of “involuntary unemplyment”all over the advanced capitalist world. If the most palpable economic problem of our time is incapable of being cognized by current mainstream economic theory, then some thing is surely wrong with the subject. Indeed because of this infirmity of current mainstream economic theory, there is even an attempt in the US to argue that the present unemployment is not “involuntary unemployment”, i.e. Not caused by inadequated demand, but relfects a skill or regional mismatch. But for this to be true, there must be some trades, some regions that must show excess demand for labour or at least tightness in the labour market. This is not the case. It is necessary therefore to make the current mainstream theory, which is dominated by monetarism, into a sideshow, and to bring what has been sidelined till now to the mainstream.

2. Did Keynes mark a 'revolutionary' break in modern economic theory? Do you see the need and possibility of a similar 'revolution' today?

As my previous answer suggests, Keynes did mark a “revolutionary break” in economic theory. But of course any science has to be open-ended, where nobody has the last word, not even Keynes. But this does not mean that Keynes has become passe and we need a revolutionary break today of the sort that Keynes had introduced. I think we have to proceed along the route shown by Keynes, and, I would add Marx before that (since Marx in my view anticipated the Keynesian revolution but relegated this aspect of his work t a secondary position). In other words mainstream economic theory had sidestepped Keynes. The need today is to revive Keynes and develop from there.

3. Does more emphasis on 'heterodoxy' solve the problem of economic theory? How can one distinguish 'science' from 'ideology' in economics?

I would distinguish ideology from apologetics. Ideology is the basis of pre-scientific cognition and the post-scientific formulation of an agenda for social change. A science-ideology totality in other words constitutes the thought of any social thinker. What is important however is that different social thinkers, having different such totalities, nonetheless agree on certain scientific propositions, and the reason for this lies of course in the scientific validity of these propositions. Joan Robinson has an extremely interesting essay called “Marx , Marshall and Keynes” in which she argues that each of these authors has a scientific core to his contributions, but with an admixture of ideology. The hallmark of a scientific contribution is that people belonging to different ideologies can nonetheless come to the same scientific truths. The example of Keynes and Kalecki is striking. Kalecki was a Marxist and an engineer by training who, on the basis of his perception of reality, came to the same theoretical positions as Keynes, who started from an entirely different ideological tradition. There can of course be genuine differences about the perception of reality, and hence contending propositions, each claiming scientific validity, but this is the way that science develops. The problem arises when the element of honesty disappears from the perception of reality, i.e. Theory becomes apologetics. Apologetics has to be avoided at all costs. Related to its is the issue of closednesss. The science ideology totality I have mentioned above must be informed by an open-endedness, i.e. Each such totality must have the capacity to look at itself afresh, to reconstitute itself anew in the light of scientific advances, which can come from science-ideological totalities of other traditions.

4. Should we continue to study the theories of Smith, Ricardo, Marx and Sraffa? What is living and hat is dead in “Classical Political Economy”?

Samuelson once sought to show economics as having a linear development, so that Smith, Ricardo, and Marx were the mere precursors (misguided in many respects but with insights nonetheless) of “modern economics”. This obviously is wrong, and Sraffa's work is precisely what makes this point. We have two entirely different alternative approaches to economics, not a transition from one to the other. For instance we have two very different notions of the price-system. In classical economics the price system, which gets determined only when the wage rate is given, plays the role of allocating the surplus among capitalists; in neoclassical economics there is no notion of a surplus at all and the price system allocates scarce resources among alternative uses” in accordance with preferences expressed through market demand. Since the classical and neoclassical approaches are two alternative approaches, and one is not the mere rudimentary form of the other, we must study both in order to understand the subject properly. My problem both with classical economics and with neoclassical economics is that they treat capitalism as a closed, self contained system, while in reality it is impossible to understand capitalism without locating it within the context of colonialism and imperialism. Marx shows an acute awareness of this in his writings on colonialism, but in Capital he takes over a Ricardian universe. The reason for this lies in my view in his belief at the time he was writing capital in the imminence of a European revolution.

5. You have emphasized in you books on accumulation and stability under capitalism and the value of money, the importance of a theory of imperialism. What is that theory in essence?

Any money-using economy, where money is a store of value and hence a form in which wealth is held, can function only on the basis of a relative stability in the exchange ratio between money and commodities in general. This typically requires that the values of some commodities be fixed in terms of money in any period and be slowly changing across periods. Marx took the value of commodities in general to be fixed in terms of money in any period (this was the essence of the Labour Theory of value); Keynes too the value of labour power i.e. Wages, to be fixed in money and slowly changing across periods. Capitalism must therefore be in a core sense a fix-price system (it is instructive that all theories that see capitalism as entirely flex-price have had difficulty developing a consistent theory of money). But then two questions immediately arise: first, if price is a weapon in the social struggle over distribution, then how can we have fix price, since the slightest change in the relative bargaining strengths should then give rise either to wage-price spirals or to changes in unemployment to maintain price stability (as NAIRU theories would suggest)? And secondly, if the system at its core is fixprice, then how does it mange to maintain a reasonable level of activity? The answer to both these questions lies in the fact that capitalism has always functioned, surrounded by and ensconce within pr-capitalist structures which it modifies and adapts to it own needs. The supplanting of producers within these structures and the snatching of their markets provides it with the exogenous stimulus for frowth and hence a high level of activity. And the consequent unemployment it generates within these economies ensures that the producers located there who sell primary commodieties to capitalism lack adequate bargaining strength and hence have compressible ex ante claims on the capitalist sector's product. This provides price stability to the capitalist sector and explains how it can remain fix price. We therefore have to see capitalism not as a closed, self contained system but as part of a totality. This is what the theory of imperialism emphasizes. I would say that some of the more recent travails of capitalism arise from the fact that this role which the pre capitalist environment had traditionally played in the functioning of capitalism, has become less feasible today.

6. How do you see the future of this theory?

What globalization has ensured is that instead of the capitalist pre capitalist divide being predominantly between countries, it now runs within countries like ours. There is a segment of the economy that is apparently flourishing because of its integration with the capitalist world. And there is another segment of the country consisting of petty producers, craftsmen, fisherfolk, agricultural labourers, and the tribal population, that is also integrated into the world economy, but is being squeezed by globalized capital. This segment is the victim of a particularly intensified form of what Marx had called Primitive accumulation of capital. The kind of stabilizing role for capitalism that the precapitalist sector traditionally played can now only be played by certain commodity producers like the oil exporting countries (which explains the contemporary imperialist aggrandizemnt against the oil producing economies); but this new phase of primitive accumulation that we see today takes the form of snatching resources, including especially land, from those against whom it is directed. This also constitutes, however, a problem for capitalism for at least three reason: first, the assault on petty production (of which the peasant suicides in India are manifestation) deprives it of valuable political support (much the way that capitalsm in the 1930s, as Schumpeter had argued, had lost the support of the urban intelligentsia); second, the vastly growing inequalities in income distribution in the world entail a tendency towards under-consumption at the global level which portends a perpetualtion of the current crisis; and thirdly, since its capacity to stabilize itself economically by making use of the pre capitalist segment is greatly weakened, the current crisis is not only likely to persist but even get converted into a crisis of inflationary recession. We are in short on the threshold of major economic and political developments, and an enriching of the theory of imperialism will not only be needed for this but will also happen in response to this need.

7. What do you think has been the strength of the centre for economic studies and planning as a centre of learning?

I consider JNU as one of the finest achievements of post-independence India, and I see the CESP within it as a specially valuable institution. The strength of CESP in my view lies in the fact that right from the beginning it decided not to pursue only one theoretical tradition as most other institutions do, but to incorporate all major traditions within its curriculum: the classical (including Marxian), neo classical (including the Walrasian) and the Keynesian tradition. Likewise it decided to give equal emphasis to theoretical, historical as well as staistical modes of analysis, without arbitrarily prioritizing only one of these over the others. As a result, it introduced students to the richness and depth of the subject, instead of inculcating in them a facile superciliousness towards non-mainstream traditions and non-theoretical modes of analysis. This approach, together with the fact, as a senior JNU professor once put it, of having “teachers who want to teach and students who want to study” is what has made CESP such a special place.

8. How can the past and present generations of CESP student carry forward its legacy?

As i mentioned earlier, i believe that we are on the threshold of major political and economic contestations, which will be marked by intense theoretical discussions and major theoretical advances. I would like CESP to be in the forefront of such advances, not just at the national level but in the world as a whole. And I think CESP is uniquely qualified to play this role because, for reasons I just mentioned, it has not got ossified into a supercilious and closed minded acceptance of what has till now passed as mainstream economics. But, for the CESP to play this role, the CESP fraternity must work with enormous intensity, diligence and broad mindedness. It is impossible to become a good Marxist without knowing Walrasian economics thoroughly; it is impossible to be a good Walrasian, without knowing Keynesian economics thoroughly; it is impossible to be a good Keynesian without knowing Marxian economics thoroughly; and so on. So, we must continue with our broad and somewhat unique approach to economics. At the same time we must never become victims of the comprador attitude towards the subject hat says “real economics” happens and can happen only out there; our job is merely to learn what is happening out there and impart it to our students”. The commoditization of education puts strong pressures on institutions like the CESP to imbibe this comprador attitude. The pressure comes not only from the government that is uncomfortable with any critical thinking on contemporary globalization and its implications for the people; it may also come from students who have to be evaluated by the global market place. But this pressure has to be resisted if the CESP is to do its social duty of advancing knowledge.

ജെനറല്‍ ഇകുലിബ്രിയം സിദ്ധാന്തത്തിലെ മികച്ച ഇന്ത്യന്‍ സാമ്പത്തിക ശാസ്ട്രഞ്ഞനായ പ്രൊഫസര്‍ അന്ജന്‍ മുഖര്‍ജിയുമായുള്ള സംഭാഷണം

സാമ്പത്തിക ശാസ്ത്രത്തിലെ കീറാ മുട്ടിയായി പലപ്പോഴും നാം കണ്ടുകൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്ന ജനറല്‍ ഇകുലിബ്രിയം എന്ന ശാഖയെ കുറിച്ച് പ്രൊഫസര്‍ അന്ജന്‍ മുഖര്‍ജിയോടു അദ്ധേഹത്തിന്റെ വിരമിക്കല്‍ ചടങ്ങിനു മുന്‍പ് ഞങ്ങള്‍ വിധ്യാര്തികള്‍ ചോദിച്ചപ്പോള്‍ സ്വത സിദ്ധമായ ശയ്ലിയില്‍ തന്നെ പ്രൊഫസര്‍ അന്ജന്‍ മുഖര്‍ജി മറുപടി പറഞ്ഞു തുടങ്ങി.
As a graduate student in the University of Rocheste, USA, you chose to take up General Equilibrium Theory as your field of research. What were the main reasons for choosing this field? What were the fundamental questions in this area at the time? How has the field of General Equilibrium Theory evolved since then?

അപ്പോള്‍ അദ്ധേഹത്തിന്റെ മറുപടി വളരെ രസകരവും സംഷിപ്തവുമായിരുന്നു.

When I was a graduate student, it was clearly understood that general equilibrium was the only sensible way of approaching any problem and so the question of doing anything else seemed clearly unattractive. And then of course the problem of choosing among supervisors clearly vanished: you worked with McKensie of he would have you. So it was not as if there was an area called general equilibrium analysis. You chose whatever area that interested you but you chose the method of attack to be general equilibrium theory. There were people working on various topics in optimal growth, international trade and on dynamic aspects of equilibrium and believe it or not, on informational aspects but all of us chose general equilibrium methods. So there were many questions that students at that time analysed and tried to solve but there was an attempt at generality: what could be said in general without making too many assumptions. Or if you will, what minimal set of assumptions ensured that a particular result was true. It should be clear that results follow only because some assumptions has been invoked. Over time the method of general equilibrium fell into disrepute: people wanted sharp results and results which looked interesting so they resorted to very specific formulations and questions and the methods of Arrow Debreu and McKenzie and standards set by them were forgotten. As I said there is no field of general equilibrium theory: there is only a method of analysis. There was brief flicker when CGE models became a tool for empirical research; but these models are far too removed from the generalities of theory, making specific choices of preferences and production relations. This is true of other more fashionable areas today. As an example, much (if not all ) of contract theory deals with people with separable utilities thus denying the existence of income effects: this was some thing which would have been unthinkable to assume when we were students.

അതുപോലെ മറ്റൊരു ചോദ്യം ഞങ്ങള്‍ J N U വിലെ C E S P കാര്‍ അധേഹതോട് ചോദിച്ചു

You joined CESP at an early age of your life in 1973. You served the Centre for almost four decades. You, along with some other faculty members have played a major role in turning CESP into one of the premiere centres for teaching and research in economics. Please share your thoughts on how the centre has evolved over time.

I joined the centre when I was 28 and I am leaving it at the ge of 65 so almost four decades is right. From nothing to something is always a great step and I suppose the best thing that kept us going was the belief and confidence, that we had, that we were doing a better job than any other department of our times regardless of what people said. There was also in the preliminary years a feeling that we belonged to a club and we d=had great mutual respect for one another and this coherence paid rich dividends. Over the years as the centre grew in size from 6 members to now 24 or 25, the coherence diminished and the interest and preoccupation of faculty members with other activities grew. May be this has been the way that most other departments have evolved over time and we have not done anything different.

പിന്നെ ഞങ്ങള്‍ അധേഹതോട് ഒരു പൂര്‍ണമായ ഇന്റര്‍വ്യൂ തന്നെ നടതുകയുണ്ടായ് ഇത് പ്രൊഫസര്‍ അന്ജന്‍ മുഖര്‍ജി സെന്റര്‍ ഫോര്‍ എകനോമിക് സ്ടടീസ് ആന്‍ഡ്‌ പ്ലനിങ്ങില്‍ നിന്നും വിരമിക്കുന്നതിനു മുന്‍പാണ്.

Some of the results which emerged in the area of general equilibrium theory in 1970s, fo instance the Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu set of results, appear to have attracted a lot of attention. How would you place these results in the literature? Some contemporary macroeconomists have argued that these results pose a methodological problem with the practice of deriving macroeconomic conclusions from microeconomic foundations. Do you agree with this view?

These results have been much misunderstood I feel: particularly the arguments that macroeconomic conclusions cannot be drawn from microeconomic foundations. In fact in this, there is no other way of proceeding. What the Debreu-Sonneschein-Mantel results show is that optimization does not restrain economic behavior in any meaningful way or that Samuelson's conjecture that one of the sources of meaningful results is maximizing behaviour is generally not true. However my own current research shows that the message of these results may be seen in a different way. Maybe what they are saying is that distribution of resources matter and this aspect has not been taken note of.

Two important areas of research in the field of Economic Theory gained popularity in the 1970s: information economics and the study of imperfect competition. The both are seen to have posed a few serious challenges to the general eqilibrium theory. Do you agree with this view? How were these issues dealth with in the context of general equilibrium theory? Do you find them satisfactory?

Not really; these areas did not pose any particular challenges: if these areas posed challenges it was to the notion of competitive markets and clearly competitive markets did not handle any of these notons well ruling ourt imperfect competition by definitions and informational asymmetries by default. But general equilibrium theory was not affected; its claims were not affected; the general equilibrium models taking into account informational issues or imperfect competition became difficult things but it was not as if the method of analysis crumbled. Economists gave up these methods because they could not find clear cut solutions and hence took to using short cuts coming up with solutions which were not real solutions to any real problems. Specific results began to be used as general and that brought about the many instances of policy failures that we have seen in our times.

In recent times you have worked in the area of economic dynamics, especially in applications of non-linear and complex dynamics in the field of economics. How important, do you feel, are these tools for an economic theorist?

These tools are basic for any theorist; in fact the standard assumption of linearity that is often made is invalid and conswquently non-linear methods are a must. In dynamics this creates fundamental problems and in fact since dynamics is basic to much of macroeconomics, the process of successful policy formutlation in any area depends on such methods. So not only are these methods of analysis important to theorists but it is crucial for any policy makers as well. This is what makes formulating policies difficult.

Your work on the Kolmogorov-Lotka-Volterra class of models have produced some of the most general and robust results in this area. How far, in your opinion, do these results address some of the concerns regarding well-known economic applications of this class of മോടെല്സ്?

I came to these models via a different rout: the Scarf example in general equilibrium theory. The ability to produce very well behaved dynamics in that model surprised me. In fact in 1998-99, I was invited by Kazuo Nishimura to address his group working on non-linear methods and I was the only speaker in five sessions spread over two days in Kyoto. I wanted a good example to exhibit the phenomenon known as Hopf Bifurcation. I realized that the Scarf example provided me with this example. Nishimura himself (together with Benhabib) had used this phenomenon to locate a cycle and this was the first time that someone had employed this method in economics. Discussing matters it quickly became pparent that what I had observed with Scarf was more widespread and the analysis of Predator-prey models followed. I presented this analysis in the centre and I remember that the OHP wire caught fire suddenly: it was thus memorable. It is not as if mathematicians were not unaware but economists appeared completely so. In spite of Samuelson's famous claim that Lotka-Volterra models were crucial to an understanding of much of economics. We tried to address some of the queries: found out what aspects of the formulations were responsible for the cycle and how robust these conclusions were and at the same time we also found out how to handle the question of bounded variables (along with Soumya). My general results indicate that there may not be too many other things left to find! May be there are! But applications are still possible in a very wide area of economics.

You have often emphasized the importance of economic theory in understanding economic problems. Can you elaborate on this?

I do not think I have any thing else to add on this: see for example my piece on this subject which appeared in the VKRV Rao Volume (Justifying Beliefs: The Role of Economic Theory, in Footprints of Development and Change, Essays in Memory of Professor VKRV Rao, ed. by N. Jayaram and RS Deshpande, Academic Foundation, New Delhi, p. 37-52, 2008); it was first presented at the DSA conference held at the CESP some years ago. Basically in a nut-shell, good economic theory provides the set of assumptions under which a set of conclusions hold. This is the reason why one must pay attention to the tenets of economic theory.

What are the biggest challenges to economic theory today? In which area of economic theory would you like contemporary research to proceed in near future? What would be your advice to contemporary young researchers in this ഫീല്‍ഡ്?

This is a difficult question to answer. The biggest challenge facing economic theory in India is the complete ignorance of most policy makers of the tenets of economic theory. What is worse is that universityes have stopped teaching basic courses in the area and if you look around in Indian Universities, researchers are not engaged in any branch of economic theory. So basically a renewal of interest in economic theory has to take place. There is nothing in economics which has been fully researched and we can say that we know all about it. Better answers are required. All areas of economic theory are open; that they may not be fashionable for research is another matter; so choose questions well and analyse them as well as you can and please pay attention to details.

We are looking forward to your upcoming book on Mathematical Methods and Economics Theory. Can you elaborate a bit on this book? What other academic projects are you currently engaged in? What other work are you planning to do in near future?

First of all, the book is a joint peice of work; written with Subrata Guha and began when we were both members of the RBI Unit at the Centre. As a former student put it, this book contains all that I have taught generations of students. The way mathematics is taught is often a problem and the kind of issues that are handled in introduction to matheco type books often show that one may dispense with them. But if one considers the three types of problems that I raise in the VKRV Rao volume, one realizes the centrality of these methods.

As to other thing: i have three projects in mind at the moment: one is to investigate whether much of competitive theory on which all policies are based is value-free as it is made out to be. The answer is no. I would like to spell this out in a small monograph. A second project which I have looked at now and then, is to try and provide a contemporary approach to the economics of the Arthashastra. And a third is to look at what is happening with one of the most depressed areas in India: the state of Bihar. The last would be a completely new area of research and I am not sure how far I would be able to go but then these are the plans that I have. In between I may have to do other things to earn a living but if all other things were taken care of this is what I would like to do.

What do you think has been the achievement of the centre in the general area of economic theory?

It has been generally felt that CESP was weak in theory; our strength apparently lay elsewhere; this perception, from the very beginning has grown by leaps and bounds. And to my great regret, I find, that unlike previously, members of the CESP fratenity have started to believe in this canard. I find this upsetting mainly because if one looks at achievements of the centre in this area, not only is it difficult to argue that CESP has been 'weak' in theory but a case can be made out that in economic theory this is one of the strongest deartments on the basis of achievements alone. A belief, that we are 'weak' in theory based on some feelings but being ignorant of facts is simply silly. I hope it is only that. But now let me state some relevant facts:

1. three voluem, published in 2000 (titled Equilibrium, volumes 1-3, edited by D Walker, Edward Elger, 2000) provided a collection of papers on the notion of Equilibrium. In these three volumes thre were two papers from a single department; not only that, in the preface, the Editory while discussing further readings mentions another paper which was part of the doctorla dissertation in the same department. The department was CESP; I doubt whether there was any other department so well represented and Mr Walked was not a friend of the centre and I doubt very much if any one from the centre has ever met him.

2. There have been several books on Economic Theory written by faculty members and published by reputed publishers both at home and abroad.

3. There are now at least five or six former students of the centre who have done a Ph. D from the centre, whose dissertations may be broadly classified as being in Economic Theory and who have been appointed to positions in central Universities and in leading economics departments. This count is an understimate and is rising.

Yet there is studied silence whenever Economic Theory is mentioned; and whenever anything about DSA or CAS is mentioned, there is never a mention of Economic Theory as a possible Thrust Area. In fact, if memory serves me right, the first DSA committee of the centre kept several of us out! I find this most strange on the part of the fraternity. We do not yet know what our strength is. Or is the fraternity ashamed to acknowledge or even admit that there have been people who have achieved these things? I would like to think that this is ignorance rather than any predetermined effort to stamp out theory by sometimes completely ignoring what has been happening and at other times, by inflicting scurrilous comments. What our fraternity should realize is that because of the activities mentioned above in a. - c., CESP academic programmes maintains whatever credibility that it still has.

ഇത്തരത്തിലുള്ള സംവടിക്കള്‍ പലപ്പോഴും ഞങ്ങള്‍ കുട്ടികള്‍ക്ക് വിഷയത്തോടുള്ള ഇടുങ്ങിയ കാഴച്ചപാടുകള്‍ക്ക് നേരെ തുറന്ന ഒരുപുസ്തകമായി വര്‍ത്തിച്ചു.

പ്രൊഫസര്‍ മുഖര്‍ജി എന്നും സി ഈ എസ് പിയുടെ മികച്ച അധ്യാപകനായിരുന്നു. എന്നാല്‍ പലപ്പോഴും നോണ്‍ മതമാടിക്സ് ബാക്ഗ്രൌണ്ട് ഉള്ള കുട്ടികള്‍ക്ക് തികച്ചും അപരിച്ചതമായിരുന്നു. പലപ്പോഴും കണക്കിലെ വിരുതന്‍ മാര്‍ക്ക് അദ്ധേഹത്തിന്റെ ക്ലാസുകള്‍ മനസ്സിലാകുമായിരുന്നില്ല!