ABSTRACT
This is not an essay about Ashok Mitra, whose importance and many contributions to our understanding of post-1947 India are captured elsewhere in the volume. There is, however, an aspect of the distinctiveness of his intellectual approach to which I would draw attention, since it is one to which the present essay responds. This is a clear historical sense, theoretically informed, allied to an awareness of the need to view India in relation to other societies and other experience. It is one of his numerous strengths.
