Nirmal Kumar Chandra, former professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM Calcutta) passed away on 19 March 2014 after a brief illness. A heterodox economist and socialist thinker, he was first and foremost a legendary teacher who inspired his students to take the “road less well travelled”. A prolific contributor to the pages of the EPW he also belonged to a generation of heterodox scholars who encouraged students and researchers to publish in Indian journals rather than those in the west which were hegemonised by liberal and then neo-liberal academia.
Of the large number of students he taught at IIM Calcutta, many, influenced by his unorthodox arguments about the problems plaguing Indian economy and society, chose to pursue higher studies in economics. This includes two editors of this journal and dozens of others who gave up corporate careers to pursue doctoral studies in economics, many under his guidance, while others studied at universities in India and abroad. Influenced by his research there were also those who came to IIM Calcutta to specifically work under his supervision.
“Nirmal da” (Chandra hereafter), as he was fondly called by his numerous students and younger colleagues, joined IIM Calcutta in 1966 and in a way never left. Even after his retirement, he had a small room where he would beaver away on his computer, producing another two dozen papers, most of them published in the pages of EPW.
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