Lost Opportunity

Crisis and Change in Contemporary India edited by Upendra Baxi and Bhikhu Parekh; Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1994; p 453, Rs 250.
THIS book is a 'shraddhanjali' in honour of a philosopher and teacher at the Maharajah Sayaji Rao University Vadodara. During the heady decade or so immediately following independence, Raojibhai Patel (affectionately known to his 'chelas' as 'Mota'), now ih his 80s, taught mathematics. But as a Marxist thinker and a quondam Royist Radical Democratic Party activist, his chief passions lay in philosophy, social theory and Indian history and politics (p 432).