Asim
Mukhopadhyay is a veteran
researcher, teacher and consultant-cum-contributor on socio-economic and
political situations in India and Bangladesh to various newspapers and journals
such as The Indian Express, Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai),
and Frontier (Kolkata). He is
continuing his research on the depressed communities, mainly the tribals,
semi-tribals, minorities, with special emphasis on marginal farmers, artisans,
the urban poor living on city pavements and scrounging garbage dumps as rag-pickers.
An MA in modern history from Jadavpur University (1966), Kolkata and a PhD from
Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata (1991) on political economy in Bangladesh
in the 1970s, he has authored several books in Bengali and English on child
labourers in the beedi industry, terracotta temples of West Bengal, documents
on the Bangladesh Liberation Movements, womens participation in local
self-governance (the Panchayati Raj), peasants struggles in India (he has
contributed a chapter to Peasant
Struggles in India, edited by Prof A.R. Desai, published by Oxford University
Press, 1979). This is his debut novel.
