Simantini Mukhopadhyay

In his academic writings spanning over six and a half decades, Amiya Kumar Bagchi straddled several areas among which economic history and political economy of development/underdevelopment attracted his abiding interest. He generally drew his insights from Marx and Keynes and illuminated the problems of underdevelopment with his own analytical perspective seeped in history.

While qualitative analysis helps us understand the processes that lead to coordinated and systematic group violence against Dalits, the context-specific substantive findings may be strengthened and integrated using insights from recent quantitative studies using large-scale national-level datasets from India. Such inquiries have unequivocally shown that declining gaps in economic status between Dalits and upper castes have led to the perpetration of caste violence in India.

Little Durga was hardworking, talented and pretty. She was a curious child with many interests. Her father was a renowned musician. When she was a child, Durga learnt to play musical instruments such as the veena, tabla and sitar. She could sing, dance and paint. Durga belonged to a Marathi Brahmin family which, like most upper-caste families of that time, was very conservative. In her community, girls received little education and were married off early. They were not supposed to have a career.