Ramachandra Guha is a historian based in Bengaluru. His books include India After Gandhi, A Corner of a Foreign Field, Environmentalism: A Global History, and Gandhi Before India. He tweets as @Ram_Guha
Articles by Ramachandra Guha
Celebrating club cricket in Bengaluru
The BUCC centenary event was a wonderful reminder of the real bulwarks of Indian cricket, the unsung club coaches and club secretaries who have sustained the game in the towns and cities of this land
Updated on Mar 24, 2019 08:57 AM IST
Martin Luther King’s Dalit connection
This correspondence between a forgotten Indian and a famous American makes for moving reading. Sending such a letter showed exceptional bravery; but then MK Achutan had showed courage all his life, in overcoming his disadvantaged family background to study engineering, in combating the upper-caste prejudice he must surely have faced in school, college, and the workplace
Updated on Mar 09, 2019 05:21 PM IST
The two faces of Winston Churchill
He was an unapologetic imperialist, who believed that India could never become a nation, that Indians should remain forever under the British yoke.
Updated on Feb 24, 2019 11:38 AM IST
Mahatma Gandhi would not have wanted a temple in Ayodhya
There can be absolutely no doubt that the Mahatma would have seen the movement for a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya as a tragic misdirection of the energies of Hindus and Hinduism
Published on Feb 09, 2019 07:23 PM IST
The four faultlines of our Republic
Contrary to these prophets of doom, we have stayed united, and somewhat democratic. However, as we mark the completion of 69 years as a Republic, a sober reflection is called for
Published on Jan 27, 2019 08:28 AM IST
Ramachandra Guha
OPINION | Kapil Dev: The greatest Indian cricketer of all time
In whatever he did on the cricket field, Kapil was absolutely thrilling to watch. As a bowler, there was his smooth and accelerating run-up, the high action and the final jump, then the outswinger moving late and away to take the edge, with the occasional off cutter and sharp bouncer thrown in.
Updated on Jan 13, 2019 11:54 AM IST
Dr Manmohan Singh: An unusual life in unusual times
Dr Manmohan Singh belongs to a select list of serious scholars who went on to become substantial politicians. They include Woodrow Wilson, who was President of the American Political Science Association before he became President of the United States; Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, a left-wing professor of sociology who promoted right-wing economic policies while occupying the highest political office in his country; Andreas Papandreou, who was chair of the Department of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley before becoming Prime Minister of Greece; and the first President of free Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, who wrote a classic work of anthropology while his country was still under British colonial rule.
Published on Dec 30, 2018 08:43 AM IST
Mushirul Hasan: Scholar, liberal, patriot
He is now gone; but his books will endure long after the hate-filled politicians of his home state are forgotten
Updated on Dec 16, 2018 05:28 PM IST
Verghese Kurien, a deep appreciation
Dr Kurien was the major architect of India’s most celebrated experiment in social and economic co-operation. The institutions he helped establish, such as AMUL and NDDB, eliminated the middleman, thereby linking farmers directly to consumers
Published on Dec 01, 2018 07:31 PM IST
An enjoyable route to rediscover India, writes Ramachandra Guha
This column has two aims: first, to evoke aspects of Keithahn’s enduring legacy; second, to bring home to those who live by slogans and on social media that altogether the most exciting and enjoyable way to be Indian is to hit the road and get to know India
Updated on Nov 18, 2018 02:47 PM IST
Once Congress had lawyers like Gandhi, Patel and Nehru
They stood up for principles. But the Congress lawyers of today appear repeatedly on behalf of groups that seek to deny women equal rights
Updated on Nov 03, 2018 06:13 PM IST
Mira and Sarala Behn: The guardians of our ecological galaxies
From Mira Behn to Prof GD Agarwal, many Indians have warned against the destruction of the Himalayas. They have alerted us to the hazards of converting mixed forests into mono-cultural stands, excess use of chemical fertilizers, negative impacts of large dams, devastation caused by sand mining, etc.
Updated on Oct 21, 2018 05:32 PM IST
The three truly cosmopolitan cities of the world
Mumbai, New York and London: I love my three world cities, but find it impossible to place one above the others, whether in terms of objective criteria or of personal experience.
Updated on Oct 07, 2018 08:01 AM IST
Birthday wishes for Mahatma Gandhi
Between 2nd October 2018 and 2nd of October 2019, we shall hear many effusively complimentary things said about the Mahatma. Can we hope that at least some of these tributes are as insightful as those offered, during Gandhi’s lifetime, by Jan Smuts and Verrier Elwin?
Updated on Sep 22, 2018 06:44 PM IST
Lessons India must learn from the Kerala disaster
If Kerala wishes to heed this second lesson, then the person they must listen to more attentively is the scientist I first went to that state with. Madhav Gadgil left the prospect of a dazzling career in the Western academy to join the Indian Institute of Science, where he established a Centre for Ecological Sciences. Through his own books and essays, and through the students he has nurtured and inspired, he has worked ceaselessly for ecological responsibility.
Published on Sep 08, 2018 05:30 PM IST
Gandhi’s last (and greatest) fast
In January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi sat on a fast for communal harmony – the last fast of his life. An exclusive extract from Ramachandra Guha’s new book on the leader, recalls that momentous time
Updated on Sep 08, 2018 09:03 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Ramachandra Guha
Somnath, Karunanidhi and Vajpayee: the three who took on Congress
Now that they are gone, the Republic of India urgently needs 21-first century analogues of these three democrats and patriots
Updated on Aug 26, 2018 08:14 AM IST
The shrinking of St. Stephen’s
The evidence indicates that the galloping Christianisation of my old college has hurt its image badly. The college authorities, impervious to this evidence, want to make the institution even more of an evangelical ghetto.
Updated on Aug 12, 2018 01:20 PM IST
Ranga Shankara: The virtuoso’s stage
Ranga Shankara is a wonderfully open and democratic space. There is no VIP row, and all tickets are priced the same; to get the best seats you have to arrive earlier than everyone else. The theatre has some 300 shows a year, in every language of the Eighth Schedule (and in some foreign tongues too).
Updated on Jul 29, 2018 09:19 AM IST
How not to promote institutions of excellence
Social media is abuzz with theories as to why Jio Institute was chosen ahead of other applicants. I do not wish to add to this speculation. But I do want to say again, and emphatically, that this is an altogether puzzling choice.
Updated on Jul 14, 2018 11:40 PM IST
How ancient India speaks to contemporary India
Indira Gandhi rarely consulted her cabinet ministers before taking an important decision. Nor, it appears, does Narendra Modi (think of demonetisation, for example). Is this method of acting unilaterally, without consultation with colleagues and advisers, wise?
Updated on Jun 30, 2018 06:49 PM IST
When the RSS praised and flattered Nehru
No Indian democrat should have misgivings about Nehru’s emphatic rejection of the RSS’s overtures to him in 1949. Had our first prime minister allowed the RSS into the Congress fold 70 years ago, the Republic would have been corroded from the start
Updated on Jun 17, 2018 12:24 PM IST
India must realise the human costs of environmental abuse
The recent protests in Thoothukudi were by working-class victims of environmental abuse. That they ended in such tragedy should have led to a belated dawning of environmental wisdom.
Updated on Jun 05, 2018 12:19 PM IST
Students can be emissaries of Hindu-Muslim unity
I do not know what whether the AMU and the BHU actually do have regular interactions. I suspect not. In that case, such interactions should be encouraged and furthered by the faculty and students, with groups having any political affiliation (right, left, or centre) being absolutely kept out.
Updated on May 19, 2018 06:38 PM IST
Three things Karl Marx got mostly right
Karl Marx was absolutely right — the British conquered India with the vilest motives, but they were yet an unconscious tool of history, in that they compelled the best Indians to look into the mirror, to examine what was flawed in their society and to work strenuously to correct this
Updated on May 06, 2018 11:08 PM IST
Why 2018 feels like 1988
From 400-plus seats in 1984, Rajiv’s Congress fell to a mere 197 five years later. No one can predict how far, the fall will be for Modi’s BJP from its 2014 tally of 282. Yet the parallels are striking indeed. Many people who were not traditional Congress voters saw hope for Rajiv in 1984; many past critics of the BJP voters saw hope for Modi in 2014. With so much goodwill behind him, Rajiv threw away the chance to take the country forward; and it increasingly seems that Modi has done the same.
Updated on Apr 22, 2018 08:17 AM IST
Choosing the 10 greatest Indians
Who would be the 10 greatest Indians of 2018? It would be interesting to see who is chosen and who is left out. It is possible that there will still be a Hindu bias, although surely not five Brahmins would figure (and that would unequivocally be a good thing)
Published on Apr 07, 2018 06:11 PM IST
In praise of Govind Talwalkar — a great editor every city, state in India needs today
For editors of his time in Maharashtra, Talwalkar was a model and exemplar. Yet his legacy speaks to editors outside Maharashtra, and to our own time too
Updated on Mar 24, 2018 06:25 PM IST
When books are confused with bombs
The impediments placed by the current Customs regime on the free movement of individual packets containing small, low-worth items of personal use is extremely irritating. Especially when, at the same time, colossal amounts of money looted from our public sector banks is being freely relocated abroad.
Updated on Mar 11, 2018 12:01 AM IST
How the Suffragettes influenced Mahatma Gandhi
Their struggles left a mark on the techniques of protest used by the Mahatma in South Africa
Updated on Feb 24, 2018 06:16 PM IST