Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
Center for Contemporary South Asia

Arguments with Gandhi I: The Diasporic Roots of Gandhi's Pluralism | Ram Guha

November 5, 2013

Join us for this first of three Fall 2013 O.P. Jindal Distinguished Lectures, by independent scholar Ramachandra Guha.

Gandhi was a Hindu who befriended Muslims, Christians and Jews; a Gujarati speaker who came to admire all the languages of the Indian sub-continent (and spoke and wrote beautiful English too); a man who advocated equal rights for women; and an upper caste individual who rejected the prejudices of the caste system. This lecture will argue that the roots of Gandhi’s pluralist, inclusive vision lie in his largely forgotten years in London and South Africa. It was his decades in the diaspora that allowed him to more deeply understand what divides, and what unites, humans in general and Indians in particular.

Ramachandra Guha is a prominent author and columnist based in Bangalore, whose research interested include environmental, social, political, and cricket history. He has been referred to by the New York Times as “perhaps the best among India’s nonfiction writers”, and was named among today’s top 100 public intellectuals in the world by Foreign Policy Magazine; he has written award-winning books and articles on a wide range of themes.

Tuesday Nov. 5th | 5:00pm
Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute 

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