Achyut Yagnik is honourary secretary of SETU: Centre for Social Knowledge and Action, Ahmedabad, a social organisation working among vulnerable communities in western India.

From 1970 to 1980, he worked as a journalist and was actively associated with the Working Journalists Union and Press Workers Union in Ahmedabad. After that he was the Gujarat Coordinator of the Lokayan Project of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (Delhi) and also the General Secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Gujarat. He was the founder editor of the Gujarati research journal "Arthat" (1981) for the Centre for Social Studies, Surat and was a consultant to and a Fellow of the United Nations University, Tokyo (1986-87). Since 1982 he has been on the Guest faculty of the Post-graduate Department of Development Communication, Gujarat University and has given lectures at the Universities of Columbia, Chicago and Berlin. Between 1981 and 1985, he was the Gujarat correspondent of the "Economic and Political Weekly".

He has published several books in Gujarati and has co-authored with Ashis Nandy, "Creating a Nationality: Ramjanmabhoomi Movement and Fear of the Self" (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1995). He is currently engaged in coordinating a national level platform, "Forum 21: for the Protection of the Right to Life and Livelihood of voiceless communities.

Achyut Yagnik, journalist and human rights activist, is honourary secretary of SETU: Centre for Social Knowledge and Action (Ahmedabad), a social organisation working among vulnerable communities in western India. He was Gujarat coordinator of the Lokayan Project of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and General Secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties in the state. He was consultant and Fellow of the United Nations University, Tokyo (1986-87). Founder editor of the Gujarati research journal "Arthat" of the Centre for Social Studies and Gujarat correspondent of the Economic and Political Weekly, he has published extensively in Gujarati and English and has co-authored with Ashis Nandy et.al. "Creating a Nationality: Ramjanmabhoomi and Fear of the Self" (OUP, Delhi, 1995).