Why Gandhi Matters

by Ramachandra Guha

This essay is a lightly revised version of Dr Ramachandra Guha's 2011 address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, to mark the International Day of Non-Violence, observed every year on Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, 2nd October.

Genres: Nonfiction, India

11 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 2, 2011

About the author

Ramachandra Guha was born in Dehradun in 1958, and educated in Delhi and Calcutta. He has taught at the University of Oslo, Stanford, and Yale, and at the Indian Institute of Science. He has been a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and also served as the Indo-American Community Chair Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

After a peripatetic academic career, with five jobs in ten years on three continents, Guha settled down to become a full-time writer based in Bangalore. His books cover a wide range of themes, including a global history of environmentalism, a biography of an anthropologist-activist, a social history of Indian cricket, and a social history of Himalayan peasants.

Guha’s books and essays have been translated into more than twenty languages. The prizes they have won include the U.K. Cricket Society’s Literary Award and the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History.

Reviews

[Janakiram · Rating 4 out of 5]

For convincing power of his personality.
For the fighter who has always ignored the use of force.
For being a man of wisdom and humility.
For devoting all his strength to the uplifting of people.