Kalyan Sanyal: A Flamboyant Intellectual

Distance does make a difference. If it didn't, why someone who seemed distant in Kolkata felt so close and  approachable from London, that I wouldn't hesitate before giving him a call even in the middle of the night.  The first thing that crossed my mind when I heard about Kalyan Sanyal's demise was that I have lost a person, whom I could call any time either for a radio interview or to get a complex issue elucidated.

Let me put my record straight. My academic record in India never went beyond mediocrity and it was even worse when I was a student at Kantakal, the seat of the Economics Department of the University of Calcutta. I had just started working as a journalist then and the purpose of infrequent visits to the campus would be either to add to the pool of attendance necessary to appear for the university examinations or to spend some friendly time in between subsequent night shifts.

So there was no reason for Kalyan Sanyal, KS - as he was popularly known among his students, to know me in my Kantakal days. I would see him sitting on the boulevard on the way to the campus and smoking cigarette or drinking tea from a nearby tea stall. In the classroom, I would have nothing to do but to watch his mannerism - bending slightly forward and animating the bass of his voice to bring in a macho effect - from the back benches. Soon I would realise though that intellectually also he was a very macho person.

When I joined the BBC World Service, in 1999, the challenge was to get someone very articulate for radio interviews, who would explain a complex issue in a very simple way so that an average listener would find it easy to comprehend. Probably it was through this sort of an exercise that I got in touch with KS. His tone was so informal yet authoritative that we would have him on air frequently, for explaining issues ranging from the WTO to the economic disparity in India.

By then he had started writing post-editorials regularly for the Anandabazar Patrika. Undoubtedly, those were good food for thought and gradually paved the way for my proximity with him. I would often call him  to understand certain things, and even if my questions centred around naivety, he would have all the patience in the world to clarify them. Possibly it was on one such occasion, I confided that I needed to study more for clarity of thoughts, and since then almost every time we spoke, he would ask me about my plan to resume academic studies.

"Kabe theke parashuna-ta abar shuru korbe? Sara jibon ki radio-te kaj korei katabe?" he would ask me. (Meaning: When are you going to start your studies again? Are you going to spend your whole life working in radio?)

Finally, when I decided to go for my second Masters at the School of Oriental and African Studies, he helped me not only with his encouragement but also by providing me with a much needed reference, at a time when I had no such contact in the academia who would vouch for my academic ability. I owe my renewed interest in academics to him the most.

In the 1990's when we were students of the Calcutta University, he was very well known for his expertise in international trade. Although I didn't attend his International Trade classes, yet I am told that his work on 'trade in middle product' is being used as reference in International Economics.

In the 21st century his thinking went beyond the confines of theoretical economics and 'Rethinking Capitalist Development' is a testimony to that. Such a seminal work calls for more scholarly interpretation. However, my understanding is that KS reconciled with the fact that Capitalism, in whatever form, was here to stay. His thinking centred around the change in narrative and architecture of Capitalism, which were needed to make it bearable for the dispossessed and the marginals.

Situated in a post-colonial set up of capitalist development, his book became very influential among the social science thinkers around the world but KS was never outspoken or overwhelmed about it. In fact, I came to know about his book from Subir Sinha, my professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

In Rethinking Capitalist Development, KS has tried to demonstrate that in a post colonial set up, along with primitive accumulation, a parallel process of reversal of the effects of primitive accumulation also sets in. He argued, and many others agreed later, that "while growth is important, it is at the same time unacceptable that those who are dispossessed of their means of labour because of primitive accumulation of capital should have no means of subsistence. Thus while on the one side primary producers, such as peasants, craftsmen etc, lose their land and other means of production, but on the other they are also provided by the governmental agencies with the conditions for meeting their basic needs of livelihood". (Chatterjee, 2008)

Although the book was published in 2007, yet it helped me understand the crisis surrounding land acquisition at Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal and also the rationale behind National Rural Employment Generation Act (NREGA) in India. Who knows, the central argument behind his seminal work might one day pave the way for making the world much more equitable than it has been ever before.

Kalyan Sanyal passed away on February 18, 2012. His book Rethinking Capitalist Development: Primitive Accumulation, Governmentality & Post-Colonial Capitalism has been translated in several languages. Many scholars have accepted his book as a world reference on Post-Colonial Capitalism.


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