Sharit K Bhowmik Has Left Us

We are all saddened to learn that Sharit K Bhowmik passed away in Bangkok on 8 September 2016. He had so much still to give to the world of ideas and the workers’ movement. He worked in the Mumbai University and later the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

I had the pleasure of interacting with him on several occasions, both on the academic and professional fronts. He supported the cause of workers and interacted closely with worker leaders. He wrote extensively on the plantation workers’ movement and workers’ cooperatives. Though a supporter of the working class, he was not uncritical of the shortcomings of trade unions; his questioning of the utility of all-India strikes is a case in point. He actively participated in the formalisation of a National Policy on Urban Street Vendors and later in the passage of the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, and in the implementation of schemes for street vendors in Mumbai and elsewhere. Renana Jhabvala in her foreword to Bhowmik’s edited book calls him a champion of the street vendors’ cause.