Ramachandra Guha

Ramachandra Guha
Guha in 2010
Born	29 April 1958 Dehra Dun, Uttar Pradesh (now in Uttarakhand)
Residence	Bangalore
Alma mater	The Doon School St. Stephen's College University of Delhi IIM Calcutta
Employer	London School of Economics and Political Science
Notable work	India after Gandhi
Religion	Hinduism
Spouse(s)	Sujata Keshavan

Ramachandra Guha (born 29 April 1958) is an Indian historian and writer whose research interests include environmental, social, political and cricket history. He is also a columnist for The Telegraph and Hindustan Times.^[1][2][3] A regular contributor to various academic journals, Guha has also written for The Caravan and Outlook magazines. For the year 2011–2012, he held a visiting position at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs.^[4] His newest book is Gandhi Before India (2013), the first part of a planned two-volume biography of M. K. Gandhi. His large body of work, covering a wide range of fields and yielding a number of rational insights has made him a significant figure in Indian historical studies, and Guha was valued as one of the major historians of the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries.

Early life and education

Guha was born on 29 April 1958 at Dehra Dun, Uttar Pradesh (now in Uttarakhand), where his father Ram Das Guha was a director at the Forest Research Institute, and his mother a high school teacher. He was brought up in Uttarakhand.^[3][5] Ramachandra Guha studied at The Doon School^[6] where he was an editor of The Doon School Weekly.^[7] He graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi with a BA in Economics in 1977 and completed a Master's from the Delhi School of Economics.^[8] He then enrolled at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, where he did a fellowship programme (equivalent to a PhD) on the social history of forestry in Uttarakhand, focusing on the Chipko movement. It was later published as The Unquiet Woods.

Career

Between 1985 and 2000, he taught at various universities in India, Europe and North America, including the University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, Stanford University and at Oslo University (Arne Naess chair, 2008), and later at the Indian Institute of Science. During this period, he was also a fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in Germany (1994–95).

Guha then moved to Bangalore, and began writing full-time. He served as Sundaraja Visiting Professor in the Humanities at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2003. He is managing trustee of the New India Foundation, a nonprofit body that funds research on modern Indian history.

In 2000, Guha penned an essay critiquing an article^[9] written by writer and activist Arundhati Roy opposing the Narmada Dam. Roy espoused the cause of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, a cause Guha is also a supporter of. However, he questioned her expertise in the relevant field and argued that her activities and writings undermined rather than helped the cause.^[10] Roy responded in an interview, saying that Guha was a cricket historian who had missed the boat.^[11]

Guha was appointed the Philippe Roman Chair of International Affairs and History at the London School of Economics for 2011–12, succeeding Niall Ferguson.

Books

Guha has authored the chapter The VHP Needs To Hear The Condemnation Of The Hindu Middle Ground in the book Gujarat:The making of a tragedy, which was edited by Siddharth Varadarajan and published by Penguin (ISBN 978-0143029014). The book is about the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Guha is the author of India after Gandhi, published by Macmillan and Ecco in 2007. This book has been translated into Hindi in two volume namely Bharat:Gandhi Ke Baad" and "Bharat: Nehru Ke Baad" and published by Penguin.

In October 2013 he published Gandhi Before India, the first part of a planned two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi which describes life from his childhood to the two decades in South Africa.^[12][13]

Personal life

Guha is married to the graphic designer Sujata Keshavan and has two children.^[14]

Awards and recognition

• His essay, "Prehistory of Community Forestry in India", was awarded the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society for Environmental History for 2001.
• "A Corner of a Foreign Field" was awarded the Daily Telegraph Cricket Society Book of the Year prize for 2002.
• He won the R. K. Narayan Prize at the Chennai Book Fair in 2003.
• The US magazine Foreign Policy named him as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world in May 2008.^[15] In the poll that followed, Guha was placed 44th.
• Padma Bhushan for 2009, India's third highest civilian award.^[16]
• 2011 Sahitya Akademi Award for India after Gandhi.^[17][18]
• In 2014, Guha was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities by Yale University^[19]
• Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize, 2015^[20]

Bibliography

Video and online sources

Speeches

• Guha, Ramachandra (2014). Gandhi's enduring legacy: Ramachandra Guha at TEDxMAIS (Speech). TEDxMAIS. Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2014). Why India is Most Interesting country in the world? (Speech). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2013). Ten reasons why India will not and must not become a superpower (Speech). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2015). Waiting for the Mahatma - Gandhi & India in 1915 (Speech). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2013). Ramachandra Guha: Indian Democracy's Mid-Life Crises (Speech). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2016). The First Vijay Tendulkar Memorial Lecture by Dr. Ramchandra Guha (Speech). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2015). Use the past to illuminate the present (Speech). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2016). Eight Threats to Freedom of Expression - Ramachandra Guha (Speech). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2015). An Interaction with Dr. Ramachandra Guha (Speech). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2013). Ramachandra Guha: Indian Democracy's Mid-Life Crises (Speech). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2011). Asian Varieties of Socialism: China, India, Vietnam (Speech). Retrieved May 5, 2016.

Interview

• Guha, Ramachandra (2012). Can You Take It Ramachandra Guha?. (Interview). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2016). Ramachandra Guha in conversation with Rudrangshu Mukherjee. (Interview). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2015). The Relevance of History for Indian Foreign Policy, a Conversation with Dr. Ramachandra Guha. (Interview). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2013). Outlook Interviews Series: Ramachandra Guha Talks to Vinod Mehta. (Interview). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2004). Hardtalk India Ramachandra Guha. (Interview). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2013). Deep Talk with Ramachandra Guha - Telangana and its implications. (Interview). Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2013). Ramachandra Guha on India's leadership crisis, Deep Talk from India Together. (Interview). Retrieved May 5, 2016.

Books

Ramachandra Guha has authored a lot of books ranging across diversified subjects such as Cricket, Environment, Politics, History, etc.^[21]

Cricket

• Guha, Ramachandra (1992). Wickets in the East. India: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195628098.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2000). Spin and Other Turns. India: Penguin India. ISBN 9780140247206.
• Guha, Ramachandra; Vaidyanathan, T.G. (1994). An Indian Cricket Omnibus. India: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195634273.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2001). The Picador Book of Cricket. India: Pan Macmillan. ISBN 9780330396134.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2004). A Corner of a Foreign Field: An Indian history of a British sport. Picador. ISBN 978-0330491174.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2005). The States of Indian Cricket: Anecdotal Histories. Permanent Black. ISBN 9788178241081.
• An Indian cricket century (Editor, works of Sujit Mukherjee, 2002)

Environment

• Guha, Ramachandra (1989). The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. Berkeley; Oxford University Press (OUP)): University of California Press. ISBN 9780520222359.
• Guha, Ramachandra; Gadgil, Madhav (1993). This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India. Berkeley; Oxford University Press (OUP): University of California Press. ISBN 9780520082960.
• Guha, Ramachandra (1998). Social Ecology. India: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195644548.
• Guha, Ramachandra; Gadgil, Madhav (1995). Ecology and Equity: The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India. India: Penguin India. ISBN 9780415125246.
• Guha, Ramachandra; Alier, Joan Martinez (1997). Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South. India: Penguin India. ISBN 9781853833298.
• Guha, Ramachandra (1999). Savaging the Civilized: Verrier Elwin, his tribals and India. Berkeley; Oxford University Press (OUP)): University of California Press. ISBN 9780195647815.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2014). Environmentalism: A Global History. United Kingdom: Penguin UK. ISBN 9780321011695.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2006). How Much Should a Person Consume?: Thinking Through the Environment. Berkeley; Oxford University Press (OUP)): University of California Press. ISBN 9789350092590.
• Guha, Ramachandra; Krishnan, M (2001). Nature's Spokesman: M. Krishnan and Indian Wildlife. Picador. ISBN 9780195659115.
• Guha, Ramachandra; Arnold, David (1998). Nature, Culture, Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195640755.

Politics and History

• Guha, Ramachandra (2012). Makers of Modern India. India: Penguin India. ISBN 9780143419242.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2007). India after Gandhi: The history of the world's largest democracy. Picador. ISBN 9780330505543.

• Guha, Ramachandra (2012). Patriots & Partisans . Penguin. ISBN 9780670083862.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2013). Gandhi Before India . Penguin. ISBN 978-0670083879.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2000). An Anthropologist Among the Marxists, and other essays. New Delhi, India: Orient Blackswan. ISBN 9788178240015.
• Guha, Ramachandra (2004). The Last Liberal and Other Essays. Permanent Black. ISBN 9788178240732.
• Guha, Ramachandra; Parry, Jonathan P (2011). Institutions and Inequalities: Essays in Honour of Andre Beteille. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198075523.

Articles in popular press

• Guha, Ramachandra (July 20, 2003). "Ecological patriot". The Hindu.
• Guha, Ramachandra (June 8, 2003). "Gandhi, the journalist". The Hindu.
• Guha, Ramachandra (December 8, 2002). "The darling of the dispossessed". The Hindu.
• Guha, Ramachandra (November 24, 2002). "Nirad Chaudhuri's Nehru". The Hindu.
• Guha, Ramachandra (November 10, 2002). "I want it back". The Hindu.

References

1. "Why there's no need to be nostalgic for an undivided India".
2. "Not the Emergency by any stretch of the imagination".
3. India Together – article by Ramachandra Guha
4. "Dr. Ramachandra Guha". London School of Economics and Political Science. 2011. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
5. http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Who-Milks-This-Cow/282904
6. Doon School product Seth to turn 60 today
7. 'History of the Weekly' published by The Doon School (2009) p.36
8. http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?234958
9. Roy, Arundhati. "The Greater Common Good". Retrieved 18 September 2006.
10. Guha, Ramachandra (26 November 2000). "The Arun Shourie of the left". The Hindu (Chennai). Retrieved 18 September 2006.
11. Ram, Narasimhan. "Scimitars in the Sun". Frontline. Retrieved 18 September 2006.
12. http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/en/content/gandhi-india-0
13. Peer, Basharat (21 October 2013). "A Conversation With: Historian Ramachandra Guha". The New York Times.
14. Business Standard: Lunch with Ramachandra Guha
15. Foreign Policy: Top 100 Intellectuals
16. "Padma Bhushan for Shekhar Gupta, Abhinav Bindra". Retrieved 26 January 2009.
17. "POETS DOMINATE SAHITYA AKADEMI AWARDS 2011" (PDF) (Press release). Sahitya Akademi. 21 December 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
18. "Guha wins it for narrative history". Chennai, India: The Hindu. 21 December 2011.
19. "Yale Awards 12 Honorary Degrees at 2014 Graduation". New Haven, Connecticut: YaleNews. 19 May 2014.
20. "Historian Ramachandra Guha Selected for Japan's Fukuoka Prize". NDTV. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
21. http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/67629.Ramachandra_Guha

External links

• Ramachandra Guha's articles for Outlook India