K Raghavendra Rao Moin Shakir, who died in Aurangabad on June 13, had been graduating from a mildly liberal radicalism to a more clearly articulated Marxist interpretation of Indian politics. His last published work, "State and Politics in Contemporary India", is an ambitious Marxist project of producing a comprehensive theoretical account of the structure, nature and dynamics of India's underdeveloped bourgeois democracy.