She taught at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi,[1][citation needed] from 1973 until her retirement in 2010.

[citation needed] Patnaik obtained her doctorate in economics from the Somerville College, Oxford, before returning to India to join JNU.

[citation needed] These issues have been discussed in more than 110 papers published as chapters in books and in journals.

[3] She has authored several books, including Peasant Class Differentiation – A Study in Method (1987),[4] The Long Transition (1999) and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007).

[6] She has also edited and co-edited several volumes including Chains of Servitude – Bondage and Slavery in India (1985),[7] Agrarian Relations and Accumulation – the Mode of Production Debate in India (1991),[8] The Making of History – Essays presented to Irfan Habib (2000),[9] The Agrarian Question in Marx and his Successors in two volumes (2007,[10] 2011[11]) and A Theory of Imperial Capitalism.