Malcolm Adiseshiah (1910−1994) was a pioneering Indian social scientist and institution builder. Born in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, his education began in Vellore and Madras (now Chennai). His subsequent academic training was first in the University of Cambridge at King’s College where he came under the influence of John Maynard Keynes and then at the London School of Economics where he obtained his doctorate.

His principal concerns were the teaching of economics, economic and social development, in particular the importance of education for development, and institution building.  His career was mainly as a teacher in St. Paul’s College, Kolkata and the Madras Christian College (MCC) in today’s Chennai, the World University Service in Switzerland, UNESCO in Paris, and finally again in Chennai as the founder of the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), and for a term as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Madras. Adiseshiah was a nominated member of the upper house of India’s parliament, the Rajya Sabha, for a period of six years. In every sphere in which he worked one can discern, as this essay hopes to illustrate, a firm commitment to certain core values and what may be termed the Adiseshiah touch.

It seems appropriate to commence with Adiseshiah’s work as a teacher of economics. This is partly due to chronological reasons but more importantly because his innovative contributions to economic pedagogy have not been adequately appreciated. 

Adiseshiah’s impact on his students is captured vividly by one of India’s foremost economic thinkers who was a pupil of his in MCC in the 1940s, K.N. Raj. Apparently he kept his classroom lecture to a minimum and encouraged his students first to read the originals rather than learn through oversimplified presentations in textbooks and for this purpose made available to them his own private collection. 

Further, he introduced the practice, pioneered by Gilbert Slater when he was appointed as the first professor of economics in the University of Madras in 1916, of understanding economics through the field by visiting villages. As Raj remarks: ​“In retrospect I cannot think of a greater contribution anyone could have made to the teaching of the subject especially when I recall some of the deadening practices adopted in other institutions we were familiar with at that time” (Neelakantan, 2010). 

The depth of Adiseshiah’s impact is assessed by another remark of Raj’s after he revisited some of the villages surveyed by MCC students years later. Raj says that working in villages meant developing emotional links which was clearly a two-way street ​“which those who now exhort us to integrate with the rural people forget all too often” (Neelakantan, 2010).  In this respect Adiseshiah ought to be regarded as a true pathbreaker in initiating young minds to economics through the field rather than by rote learning of information which is rarely processed into a meaningful whole. 

Adiseshiah recognised the importance of education in development far earlier than many contemporaries did. He argued that the rate of return on investments to education is perhaps the biggest of all even if it cannot be measured precisely. In the words of a colleague of his, he emphasised the ​“decisive contribution of education to socioeconomic development in the third world” (Prabhakar, 1995), anticipating what would later be called investment in human capital. 

Adiseshiah was of the view that there was a ​“need to take life and society which are not encompassed within the economists’ universe of discourse” (Adiseshiah, 1970). It was no surprise that with this perspective he was not approving of the excessive emphasis placed on physical development as the World Bank was prone to do. 

The second phase of Adiseshiah’s career was at UNESCO which he joined in 1949. Adiseshiah was instrumental in focusing attention on the fundamental problems which the developing countries faced. And once again he brought to the fore the pivotal role of education. Among the notable spheres where he left his mark should be mentioned tailoring knowledge transfer and such programmes to the specific requirements of the recipient countries. Adiseshiah’s associate and colleague Eric Prabhakar estimates that Adiseshiah’s files in UNESCO number 118 and run to about 48,000 pages. 

Two major articles of faith for Adiseshiah apart from the value of education were the following. First, there was no ​“typical” developing country. This meant that development efforts had to be country-specific. Second, the imperative of reducing the extent of inequality. Naturally as a corollary he emphasised the necessity of ensuring growth and development of the poorest sector and section of the economy/​society since only through their economic empowerment could overall development take place. 

Questioning the premise that poverty is a virtue Adiseshiah remarked sagely: ​“If poverty is a virtue, then all should be poor. It is the non-poor who point to the meritorious nature of poverty […] Inequality then, is ethically evil, socially unjust, and economically non-optimal Progress, he believed, must lead to an equitable society and not to the growth of excessive income differences and the emergence of an entrenched privileged minority; in fact, economic  growth could ​“only be sustained if it was accompanied by structural changes promoting equity” (Adiseshiah; Prabhakar, 1995).

Recognising the necessity of providing training to teachers he was largely responsible for founding the International Institute of Educational Planning in Paris in 1963. He secured support for this from the French government, World Bank and the Ford foundation. In recognition of this substantial achievement, he was elected the President of the Institute for two terms and was the first from the developing world to have this honour. 

Adiseshiah continued his involvement in the field of education after retiring from UNESCO. Perhaps one of the finest tributes which Adiseshiah received was from the former Secretary-General of the UN U. Thant who said that Adiseshiah’s ​“humanistic approach to education in promoting development would serve the UN well in the next development decade” (Neelakantan, 2010).

The third phase of Adiseshiah’s career commenced after he retired from UNESCO at the age of sixty. Even while in Paris he and his wife Elizabeth had formed a trust with the objective of establishing a centre for research in the social sciences in Chennai. Here we have an example of a committed intellectual blending in himself the roles both of a global personality and one devoted to his local moorings. This fusion is evocatively brought out by the celebrated writer and public intellectual, U.R. Ananthamurthy in the inaugural Founder’s Day Lecture in MIDS (Saleth, 2012). 

MIDS came into existence in 1971 and was housed in a building belonging to the Adiseshiahs. It soon made a name for itself and Adiseshiah was invited by the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) to make it a national level centre for research and in 1977 MIDS became a recognised ICSSR institute. He was the first Director as well as the first Chairman of MIDS and played a most significant role in developing the Institute. The Oxford economist Barbara Harriss-White assesses his role aptly. She says that Adiseshiah enabled an institute where scholars could pursue their interest with a minimum of direction and adds that this ​“kind of environment” is extremely rare anywhere in the world (Harriss-White, 1994).

Adiseshiah introduced a monthly seminar series, publishing the seminar papers in the MIDS Bulletin which he himself edited. As Kurien has said in his Reminiscences, the Bulletin became more well known perhaps for Adiseshiah’s editorial commentary on the socio-economic situation. In the words of S. Subramanian (1995), a former member of the Institute’s faculty, ​“This special issue of the Bulletin is dedicated to the memory of Dr Malcolm Adiseshiah, who founded the periodical, edited it, and guided its destiny for an unbroken spell of twenty-four years. … The Bulletin Editorials, when put together, would constitute a remarkable compendium of change and continuity in the economy and society of Tamil Nadu, India and the world at large over the decades of the ​’70s, the ​’80s and (a part of) the ​’90s: this, surely, is the stuff of which archives are made.”

In later years the Bulletin became the foundation for the Institute’s journal Review of Development and Change which C.T. Kurien commenced in 1996. The journal continues to be published and enjoys a good reputation.

Another major contribution of his was the Mid-term Review of the Economy which was presented annually at the India International Centre in Delhi. This was done without break from 1976 to 1993. 

Given Adiseshiah’s sense of values it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he did not make use of his influence and contacts to garner resources for MIDS. However he made over a vast site with a building in Chennai to the Institute, which was sold in 2003 giving it a much needed addition to its corpus. In terms of his will after some benefactions were attended to out of the remainder a Trust, called the Malcolm and Elizabeth Adiseshiah Trust, was created to encourage teaching and research in economics. 

The Malcolm and Elizabeth Adiseshiah Trust marks his birthday, 18 April, by announcing the names of the scholars selected for the Adiseshiah Award and the Elizabeth Adiseshiah Citation on that day.  While the former is for lifetime contributions the latter is restricted to scholars below 45 years of age. The former has been awarded since 2001 while the latter was initiated in 2019. The Trust annually selects a teacher for the Best Teacher Award in Economics. Both the Award and the Citation are presented to the awardees on 21 November, the anniversary of his demise.

To the very end Adiseshiah worked on themes of concern to him and to the country and society. A sample, a very short one indeed, of his important writings given below illustrates his breadth of vision and commitment to the core values of a humane approach to development.

About the author

V.K. Nataraj was a development economist who served as Director of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Mysore, and the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai.