Shahid Amin received his D.Phil. from Oxford University and is currently Professor of History at the University of Delhi. Among his publications are Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992 (1995) and Writing Alternative Histories: A View from India(2002). He is the editor of A Concise Encyclopedia of North Indian Peasant Life (2005), the co-editor, with Gyan Pandey, of Nimnvargiya Itihas, Bhag Ek, Bhag Do (1994, 2001), and has also written the Hindustani dialogues of the feature film 'Karvan', directed by Pankaj Butalia.

He was the Rajni Kothari Chair in Democracy in the year 2012-13 and delivered the Annual Rajni Kothari Lecture on ‘Community Formation and the Recognition of Difference: the Image of a Turkic Warrior in Gangetic Folklore’ in 2013.