Abstract
One obituary writer referred to Ajit as the Professor of Courage, an epithet entirely appropriate in view of the inspiring dignity, relentless determination and unfaltering grace with which he contended with the predations of Parkinson’s disease that struck him at the early age of 42. Ajit refused to let the adversity slow him down, let alone ground his academic travels and pursuits, and he proudly pointed to his greater research productivity during the middle decades of this prolonged battle. In this odyssey with its inescapable and foretold end, he was supported by dedicated bands of caring carers—family and students, personal and professional assistants—who collectively kept him going against all odds. “We were his arms and legs, he was the thinker” were the poignant words of a close associate. Ajit was propped up reading his colleague and friend Luigi Pasinetti’s Cambridge and the Cambridge Keynesians when time ran out.
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Notes
- 1.
Rashid Amjad, following his brother Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, a student of Ajit’s at Queens’ and a close friend thereafter, poignantly recounts Ajit’s first discovery of Parkinson’s: “Ajit was staying with us in Bangkok in 1982 on a working assignment with ILO/ARTEP. He had asked me to arrange for him a traditional Thai massage as he had developed a tremor in his right hand which he thought was due to his carrying the legendary heavy briefcase he brought with him to office, equally heavy on his way back. While these daily sessions were in progress I suggested we also get a medical opinion at the Samitivej Hospital of whose doctors we had formed a high opinion; our physician suggested we see the specialist, who as it turned out had just returned after a stint at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge. I accompanied Ajit when we went into see her. After examining him she told us that it was Parkinson’s. I was stunned but found Ajit quite composed as he took in this news. I suggested to Ajit as we drove back that doctors can vary considerably in their diagnosis. Ajit said he would have more tests done when he would return to Cambridge. Over the next ten days he stayed with us I had a feeling that Ajit thought that this diagnosis could well be true. But I could see then that he was already working out in his mind how to fight against and, more importantly, how to live with it. Only over the years I found how resolute was his determination not to allow it to slow him down” (personal communication, email dated 17 December 2017).
- 2.
Ajit Singh, Curriculum Vitae , December 2014. This part of the text was probably written in 2007 at the point of retirement and precisely 25 years from 1982 when Parkinson’s set in. Sections of the CV appear to have been updated at different points in time.
- 3.
A UK government programme introduced after the enactment of the Disability at Work Act (1995) which made the University as his employer legally bound to assist him with his particular needs in order to carry out his duties with them. They provided funding for a personal assistant-cum-carer for him as well as support for travelling within the remit of his employment. Ajit made the most of this funding and continued to travel the world taking along an assistant when required. (This information was kindly provided by Anne Hayward .) Lyn Parry provides additional details: “the scheme is non-means tested and is in addition to normal disability benefits; and … Ajit received in excess of GBP 65,000 per annum which paid for his assistants, business class travel, etc. Without that I am unsure if he would have received the help he did” (personal communication).
- 4.
His old colleague and friend Ron Smith recalls: “My impression at the time was that the diagnosis may have made him feel that he would be wasting what might have been a limited time left if he continued such an involvement in faculty politics as he had in the previous years. It may also have been by then that he saw the returns to his involvement would be lower given the changed position. Less time on Faculty politics gave him a lot more time for research” (personal communication, email dated 30 January 2018). Anne Hayward , who worked with and for Ajit over two decades, reflects on the later years: “he became more and more confined and thus his focus on economic research became his outlet” (personal communication, email dated 1 July 2018).
- 5.
Personal communication, 23 October 2017. Jo knew Ajit more or less from when he arrived in Cambridge; they were married between 1993 and 2011.
- 6.
His sartorial styles perhaps varied with the occasion: “As we waited for him to arrive for supervisions, we were ready to be surprised by his choices of clothing combinations: one day he turned up with what became known as the ‘traffic lights outfit’: red turban, orange sweater and green trousers ” (Earl 2016, p. 305).
- 7.
Diana Kazemi recalled, with happy amusement, how Ajit would sometimes seek her fashion advice in the selection and matching of turbans and ties ; over time she had developed a fair proficiency in the tying of turbans; she also said she had never seen such a large collection of ties. (Personal communication, in conversation, dated 15 August 2018.) Early family photographs confirm later suspicions: Ajit was a dapper dresser from the go—images at age ten or fifteen show him off complete with turban and natty ties, though still without a wisp of hair on his cheeks.
- 8.
“Louder!” was the call from Martin Wolf , chairing a session of the Bretton Woods Conference, when Ajit asked the speaker, Larry Summers , a question; “I have Parkinson’s Disease , my voice is a bit weak”, but his words weren’t, as Ajit then proceeded to throw his spanner into the works challenging the WB-IMF once-size-fits-all approach to the design of financial reforms being imposed on developing economies, leaving Summers to acknowledge “that it’s a very legitimate issue that needs to be considered” Summers (2011).
- 9.
Manali Chakrabarti is an economic historian affiliated, at the time of writing her powerful interrogation, with the Institute of Development Studies , Kolkata.
- 10.
Personal communication, email dated 1 July 2018.
- 11.
To be recorded is Geoff Harcourt’s appreciation expressed in his speech at the celebratory dinner at the Queens’ College Festschrift Conference for Ajit: “Jo’s devoted love and care are equally admired by their friends. As I said at the conference dinner, the day they celebrated their marriage was possibly the happiest day I and their other friends have had in Cambridge” (Harcourt 2008, p. xiii).
- 12.
Personal communication, email dated 31 January 2018.
- 13.
Personal communication, email dated 1 July 2018.
- 14.
Personal communication, email dated 31 January 2018.
- 15.
Personal communication, in conversation, on 15 August 2018.
- 16.
Personal communication, email dated 1 July 2018.
- 17.
Alice Amsden was an enthusiastic participant at the Queens’ College Festschrift Conference in honour of Ajit in 2007. Sadly, she passed away four years later; in his contribution to the Alice Amsden Symposium held at MIT (19 October 2012), Ajit called her “one of the outstanding American institutional economists of the last hundred years. In my view she stands in company with J. K. Galbraith , Thorstein Veblen , J. R. Commons , Adolf Berle and Karl Polanyi , as being among the most original and influential political economists of that period. However, her economics was less Cambridge, Massachusetts and was far more like Cambridge, England” (Singh 2012).
- 18.
I would like to believe Ajit was not dwelling unduly on what Luigi calls “the interlude of unwise behaviour”, effectively when “the Cambridge seniors self-harmed and capriciously undermined the evolution of the Cambridge heterodox school ”; rather, one would wish to imagine, Ajit—who thought extremely highly of Luigi—was drawn to his old colleague’s rousing call to arms “to regain the lost strength for a decisive resumption of what began with wide expectations and awed fascination but has remained a ‘revolution’ still unfulfilled — a revolution still needing to be accomplished” (Pasinetti 2007, p. 360). Ajit the unvanquished warrior: always looking forward, preparing for tomorrow’s battle; the spirit ever willing, but the body….
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Saith, A. (2019). Cambridge to the End: The Final Battle. In: Ajit Singh of Cambridge and Chandigarh. Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12422-9_10
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