Lord Meghnad Desai, a “multifaceted personality”, eminent economist, holder of India’s third-highest civilian honour, and a member of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords has handed away on Tuesday (July 29, 2025), at the age of 85.
Commenting on the loss, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to the social media platform X to say he was “anguished by the passing away of Shri Meghnad Desai Ji, a distinguished thinker, writer and economist”.
“He always remained connected to India and Indian culture,” Mr. Modi added. “He also played a role in deepening India-U.K. ties. Will fondly recall our discussions, where he shared his valuable insights. Condolences to his family and friends. Om Shanti.”
Born Meghnad Jagdishchandra Desai, Lord Desai, as he got here to be identified following his membership to the House of Lords within the U.Okay., was born in Vadodara in 1940. After finishing his Bachelor’s in economics from the University of Mumbai, he went on to complete his Master’s diploma from the identical college earlier than securing a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, the place he accomplished his PhD in economics in 1963— three years after he secured admission there.
Desai’s persona, in addition to his skilled and private accomplishments can maybe greatest be encapsulated by what Montek Singh Ahluwalia wrote about him within the guide ‘Arguing about the World: The Work and Legacy of Meghnad Desai’.
“I have known Meghnad for many years in a staggering variety of avatars: as a one-time Marxist economist, a mainstream economist/econometrician at LSE, a Labour Party activist, a Labour Member of the House of Lords … a keen and surprisingly good cook, an insightful observer of the Indian political scene, a regular columnist in one of India’s leading newspapers, a biographer of one of the best-loved Bollywood icons of yesteryear, most recently a late-blossoming novelist, and above all a wonderful raconteur and bon vivant,” Mr. Ahluwalia wrote in his chapter of the guide.
The guide, printed in 2011, additionally has eminent economist Jagdish Bhagwati describing Desai as being at the “forefront of discussions on Indian public policy for many years”.
Desai’s early works actually have been centered on the Marxian method of thought, together with his first guide Marxian Economic Theory (1973), which was comparatively shortly adopted up by Applied Econometrics (1976), and Marxian Economics (1979), which was a revised version of his 1973. He then wrote a critique on monetarism — the financial concept that focuses on the function of cash provide in influencing financial exercise and worth ranges — in 1981.
Through all this, Desai additionally dedicated himself to an illustrious educating profession, primarily at the London School of Economics.
Notably, in 2002, he wrote Marx’s Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism by which he argued that the continuing development of globalisation would ultimately lead within the path of a revival of socialism.
The overwhelming focus European societies place on social safety, and the continuing development even in India of accelerating doles to the citizens suggests Desai may not have been far off the mark in his evaluation.
In whole, Desai wrote or edited greater than 20 books and over 200 articles for educational journals.
Among them was the guide ‘Who Wrote The Bhagavadgita?’, printed in January 2014. According to HarperCollins, the writer, Desai in his guide contended “that some themes in the Gita reinforce social inequality and lack of concern for the other and to that extent he finds Gita to be toxic”.
Desai was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian honour, in 2008.
