Obituary – Ashok Mitra (1928–2018)

What was remarkable about Ashok Mitra, who passed away on 1 May 2018, was his steadfast commitment to the cause of the people. A telling episode he records in his autobiography may explain how he came to acquire his sympathies. This happened in his maternal village, famous for its sons and daughters who had done exceedingly well in various walks of life, including nationalist politics of both armed and unarmed versions. But the most prominent people in the village were landlords, proud of their high-caste, ‘idle rich’ status, who would routinely extort their economic and social dues from the poor low-caste and Muslim tenants. The event which young Ashok had witnessed and could never forget involved a young Muslim teenager who had forgotten to get off the narrow bund between paddy fields to make way for the landlord’s son. The bunds were used as narrow pathways, and the custom was for the lowly tenant to step down into the muddy ground when he saw his superiors approaching; instead this boy had merely bent his body to make room. The crime was horrendous in the eyes of the landlord’s progeny and his cohorts. The Muslim youth was immediately sent for, bound hand and foot, flung on the ground, and beaten bloody with a wooden plank studded with nails.