Dr Probal Roy Chowdhury is currently Professor and Head of the Department of English at Sister Nivedita University, Kolkata. Earlier he taught English and cultural studies at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu). His doctoral thesis Changing Profile of Community Participation in School Education in Madras Presidency: 1820-1920 has been in continuation of the perspective presented by the late Gandhian thinker and historian Dharampal (1922-2006) in his seminal work, The Beautiful Tree, which showed that prior to the British rule there was a wide spread and inclusive public education system which was functioning in the Madras Presidency and was better than the public education systems anywhere in Europe till the early nineteenth century. In his doctoral work, Probal has compiled — perhaps for the first time — authentic and substantial evidence for the emergence of educational deprivation among many of the ‘backward communities’ in India as being concomitant with the establishment and growth of the colonial education system under the British rule. Probal has also worked with the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai, as a post-doctoral fellow, and with the TVS Educational Society, Chennai, as an educational consultant. His teaching and research interests lie in the history of education in modern India, society and polity in pre-British India, cultural and religious traditions of Bengal, postcolonial theory and literature, and Indian writing in English. In Kolkata, Probal is part of small team that is involved in developing an India studies resource centre with a special focus on documenting the Durga festival of Bengal.