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Constitution@75 Ambedkar’s Warnings, The Telegraph

January 25th, 2025|

Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is, that Man was vile. B. R. Ambedkar, speaking to the Constituent Assembly of India, November 1948 The Indian Constitution came into force on 26th January 1950. This weekend [...]

Warts and All, The Telegraph

January 11th, 2025|

Shortly before he demitted office as Prime Minister in 2014, Manmohan Singh said that history would judge him more generously than the media was then doing. Now, reading the outpouring of adulatory tributes to Singh after his passing, this historian is led to wonder—are these eulogies altogether merited? Was he the wise, all-knowing, and apparently flawless statesman that he is [...]

Baba’s Family, The Telegraph

December 28th, 2024|

The first time I knew myself to be in the presence of greatness was while sitting under a shamiana in New Delhi’s Modern School sometime in the last quarter of 1974. I had recently joined college, and a group of friends had taken me along to hear a music concert. The performers were Ali Akbar Khan, on the sarod; Ravi [...]

Drawing on writings of the past decade-and-a-half, this website of Ramachandra Guha’s writings will be continuously updated to include his columns as they appear. Through these rich and varied essays, Guha seeks to capture the modern history of what he terms the ‘most interesting country in the world’.