Amiya Kumar Bagchi: An Economic Historian’s Life and Legacy

• Amiya Kumar Bagchi, an economic historian, passed away on Thursday evening.

• Bagchi was a respected economist, scholar, and public intellectual of his time.

• He left his college for speaking out against injustice and joined Presidency College, Kolkata.

• After completing his Master’s in economics, he went to Cambridge University on a West Bengal government scholarship.

• He joined the Faculty of Economics and Politics at Jesus College.

• Bagchi was a macroeconomist working on historical data, identifying patterns in data that only his macroeconomics could reveal.

• His work, including his book Private Investment in India 1900-1939 and research on “Deindustrialization in the Indian economy in the Colonial Period,” provided definitive evidence to a long-standing debate.

• Bagchi returned to Kolkata to teach at Presidency College and later the Centre for the Study of Social Sciences, Calcutta.

• After leaving the government, he established and directed the Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata, and remained a Professor Emeritus until his last days.

• Bagchi was an institution-builder, re-establishing the propositions first advanced by Indian nationalist writers and illuminated the workings of imperialism in producing underdevelopment.

• Despite numerous offers of prestigious jobs elsewhere, Bagchi remained loyal to Kolkata, serving as a bridge between Kolkata and Cambridge.