Ramachandra Guha: Ten Reasons Why India Will Not and Must Not Become a Superpower

Named one of the fifty most influential people in India, Ramachandra Guha is a historian and biographer based in Bangalore. Dr. Guha’s books and essays have been translated into more than twenty languages, earning him the reputation by Time Magazine as ‘Indian democracy’s preeminent chronicler’. He has previously taught at the universities of Yale and Stanford, held the Arné Naess Chair at the University of Oslo, and been the Indo-American Community Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Guha’s most recent book, India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, has won numerous awards and was chosen as a Book of the Year by the Economist, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out, and Outlook. It was also chosen as a Book of the Decade by the Times of India and The Times. Dr. Guha was recently nominated as one of the world’s one hundred most influential intellectuals and in January 2009, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the Republic of India’s third highest civilian honour.