The Soul of EPW: Ashok Mitra

Ashok Mitra was a man of many passions. The foremost of them was a burning anger against poverty and inequality in India. Close to this passion was his devotion for over six decades, beginning in the mid-1950s, to the Econo­mic Weekly (EW), which later became the Economic & Political Weekly (EPW).¹

Over this entire period, AM, as he liked to call himself in the weekly, was a regular writer and then the most widely read columnist in the history of EW/EPW. For decades, he was also a voracious reader of the journal. He was a passionate spokesperson of EPW too, losing no opportunity to write and speak of the importance of the journal in India. He was also quick to defend it publicly whenever it was attacked for whatever reason.