Over an year ago, Ramachandra Guha spoke on the Multiple Careers of Mahatma Gandhi, at the Chennai Mathematical Institute. Guha listed four callings of Gandhi including that of a Freedom Fighter, a Social Reformer, a Religious Pluralist, and a Prophet/Futurist and said, in each of his four callings, Gandhi innovated and forged novel techniques to address what he saw as the fundamental problems. In each of the four callings he was bitterly opposed by multiple groups including those having diametrically opposite views to each other. Guha went on to say that Gandhi was a truly universal thinker who stands out for his enduring trans-Indian relevance.
Less than a month ago, on the 30th of March to be precise, Guha was again in Chennai to deliver the M.Ct.M. Chidambaram Chettiyar Memorial Endowment lecture at the University of Madras. On this occasion he spoke on "Verdicts on Nehru: The Rise and Fall of a Reputation."
I attended Guha's talk on Nehru, took notes and also have an audio recording of the entire talk. I hope to write about it soon and will also try and clean up the audio and put up the entire audio recording on the web.
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