Economic and Political Weekly

• 1. Introduction

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  The Economic and Political Weekly has, since 1949, carried the arguments of some of the most consequential thinkers in modern India. Amartya Sen has written in its pages. So has Manmohan Singh, Romila Thapar, Angus Deaton, and Jeffrey Sachs. A journal that began under the modest name Economic Weekly, published out of India, somehow drew a constellation of economists and scholars whose work would shape policy, courts, and public debate for generations. How does a small peer-reviewed weekly from the subcontinent earn that kind of company? And what happens when the institution tasked with maintaining it comes under pressure to silence a story it has published? These are the questions at the heart of the EPW's story.

• 2. From Weekly to Landmark

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  Sachin Chaudhuri founded the journal in 1949 as the Economic Weekly, and for nearly two decades that name stuck. The year 1966 brought a more ambitious title: Economic and Political Weekly, a name that announced the journal's scope beyond economics alone. Krishna Raj edited the publication for more than three decades, a tenure that shaped its identity and helped build the reputation it carries today. The Sameeksha Trust, which publishes the journal, governs it through a board that includes figures such as historian Romila Thapar, economist Deepak Nayyar as chairman, and social scientist Andre Beteille. That blend of academic heavyweights in governance has given the journal a degree of institutional credibility that few Indian weeklies can match.

• 3. A Voice With a Stance

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  The journal's editorial line has never been neutral by design. It is known for taking left-leaning positions, and its editorials have not spared parties that might be considered natural allies. The journal was at times critical of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) government in West Bengal for not being radical enough in its policies. The Hindu has described the EPW as taking a strong editorial stance with what it calls a "social conscience". The Caravan went further, noting the journal's "obsession with intra-Marxist debate", while also observing that its contributors span a wide spectrum, from free-market liberals to Naxalite sympathisers. The journal was harshly critical of policies pursued by the Indira Gandhi government during the Emergency period. It also addressed state complicity in the 2002 Gujarat riots, a stance that placed it squarely in contested political territory.

• 4. The Adani Controversy

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  In 2016, editor C. Rammanohar Reddy resigned in a move that drew immediate concern from the academic community. Scholars signed an open letter expressing alarm at the circumstances, and at least one board member, Jean Dreze, resigned from the board in protest. The tension deepened the following year when Reddy's successor, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, also quit in 2017. His departure followed the removal from the journal's website of an article about the Adani Group. The stated reasons for that removal struck many observers as unclear or unjustified. The Sameeksha Trust responded with a statement on the EPW website, arguing that Guha Thakurta had violated his editorial position by responding directly to a legal notice from the Adani Group without notifying the Trust. The episode drew fresh rounds of criticism from scholars and commentators, with the Trust itself becoming the focus of scrutiny. Eventually, the political theorist and professor Gopal Guru was appointed editor in January 2018, beginning a tenure that would run through July 2023.

• 5. Infrastructure and Reach

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  The journal is abstracted and indexed in CAB Abstracts and Scopus, placing it within the international academic citation ecosystem. On the licensing side, the EPW has granted non-exclusive rights to three content aggregators: Contify, Factiva, and JSTOR. Contify distributes EPW material further through platforms including LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, Gale Cengage, AcquireMedia, and NewsBank. Factiva and JSTOR make the content available to their own registered users. In August 2023, economist S. Mahendra Dev was named as the journal's new editor, succeeding Gopal Guru and beginning a new chapter for a publication that has now been in continuous operation for more than seven decades.