March 2021
Where the Hard Right Meets the Hard Left, The Telegraph
I have been reading the memoirs of Dora Russell, a pioneering British feminist and educationist. These were published in three volumes, of which I have just finished the first. This covers her upbringing in Edwardian [...]
February 2021
Why Modi and Shah Fear Young Activists, NDTV.com
Why would the Indian state arrest a twenty-one-year-old woman activist who seeks a cleaner and safer planet? Should not the country want young people to look beyond their narrow personal interests to the interests of [...]
January 2021
The Moral Evolution of Mohandas K Gandhi, The Telegraph
The American writer Louis Fischer is best known for his book The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, which Richard Attenborough drew upon while making his award-winning film of 1982. Fischer’s book was published in 1949, a [...]
In Praise of Archives and Archivists, The Telegraph
In the third week of January 2020—exactly a year ago—I was in New Delhi, working in the collections of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. I first discovered the archival riches of the NMML in [...]
A Man to Match His Mountains, from the Introduction to The Chipko Movement by Shekhar Pathak
I first came across Shekhar Pathak’s name in the files of the Uttar Pradesh State Archives in Lucknow. The year was 1983, and I was working on a dissertation on the social history of forests [...]
Making Indian Cities Habitable – The Legacy of Patrick Geddes, India Forum
‘India lives in her villages’, said Mahatma Gandhi, and that maxim of his has been resolutely followed by Indian environmentalists. From celebrated popular struggles like the Chipko Andolan and the Narmada Bachao Andolan to quieter, [...]