Economic thinking in India

The reason of writing this book may be traced back to my student days when author was a post-graduate student at the Panjab University Camp College, New Delhi, during the session 1949-51. The idea that became intense in my mind was that there was the need of a new book on History of Economic Thought. The standard books available on the subject such as that of Gray, Haney Roll, Gide and Rist and Whittaker did not lay proper emphasis on all schools of thought. The result was that a beginner in the subject was not able to have a clear idea of its development which he required. However, this idea could not be put into pracitee immediately due to certain difficulties in life.

In 1954 when the work was started one of my friends suggested to me that it would be better to take up a comparative view of Indian and Western economic thought. Therefore on his advice the work was started on both Western and Indian economie thought simultaneously. But after some spade work had been done it was found that there was no correlationship between the two, i.e., Indian and the Western economie thought. Therefore it was decided to take up the two works separately. As little material was available on Indian economic thought the work had to be started from the serap. Because of certain difficulties the work had to be suspended again and again for some time and could not be completed earlier than this.