SOCIAL SCIENTIST moment in the life of Marxism, a sensitive Marxist like Pradhanji should have sought to assimilate certain aspects of Gandhi's thought into the corpus of his beliefs. Secondly, as he told me once, he started travelling around the countryside a lot more to get first-hand knowledge of the people's condition and thinking. He would simply go off to some mofussil town away from Patna, and spend the whole day there having tea at some roadside shop and chatting with whoever cared to spend some time with him. These forays of course did not mean neglecting his usual job of reading and writing; he wrote extensively, enriched no doubt by his wanderings. He was attempting to redefine the image of a social scientist while shaping his own practical life in accordance with it; In the last two years he had turned his attention to theory once more, and was attempting a critique of Ricardo's theory of trade and accumulation from the viewpoint of its relevance to developing countries. Pradhanji's passing away is an immense loss. We have lost a dedicated Marxist, a perceptive interpreter of the agrarian scene, an analyst par excellence of the political economy of Bihar, a staunch anti-imperialist, and a man full of joie de vivre who once confessed that only two things excited him, good food and politics. With best compliments from Glorious Printers 1597-98 Patoudi House Daryaganj NewDelhill0002 Phone • 3279877 rnone . 3261649