The prescient iconoclast

MEGHNAD Desai is a polymath of the social sciences. He has been a professor at the London School of Economics. He has also been a politician, affiliated to Britain's Labour party and a member of the UK House of Lords since 1991. He has published widely on a variety of topics, ranging from Marxian economics to Islamic ideology to Indian history. He has also written a novel and a biography, and is a prolific newspaper columnist. He is a natural iconoclast, sceptical of received wisdom, unafraid to express views that startle and shock.

Currently, Prof Desai is the chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, which describes itself as "an independent think tank for central banking, economic policy and…