Ramachandra Guha at Manthan (

Ramachandra Guha’s talk at Manthan, No. 197, is based on, and around, his new book 'Democrats & Dissenters'.
Democrats and Dissenters is a work of rigorous scholarship on topics of compelling contemporary interest, written with elegance and wit. The book covers a wide range of themes: from the varying national projects of India’s neighbours to political debates within the country itself, from the responsibilities of writers to the complex relationship between democracy and violence. It has critical assessments of the work of Amartya Sen and Eric Hobsbawm, and essays on the tragic predicament of tribals in India-who are, as Guha demonstrates, far worse off than Dalits or Muslims, yet get a fraction of the attention-as well as on the peculiar absence of a tradition of conservative intellectuals in India.
Each essay takes up an important topic or an influential intellectual as a window to explore major political and cultural debates in India and the world. Thus, one essay compares India’s ‘Kashmir problem’ with Sri Lanka’s ‘Tamil problem’; another analyses the relationship between religion and politics in India and Pakistan. Several of these are being published for the first time; others have been extensively revised and updated.

[@diwaahkar]

Ramchandra Guha Sir and Manthan foundation thankyou so much ❤️🙏🏻👌🏻

[@abhishekdev353]

Excellent video keep up the good work #manthan team

[@shankar1967]

Mr Guha. Excellent as you always are. Sir, you mentioned right wing intellectuals or the lack of them and you mentioned Dr RC Mazumdar? Can you name one university which prescribes Dr RC?

[@sourabhbhattacharya6376]

Seemed like I was sitting in an echo chamber of some kind. Conservative intellectuals already labelled as 'Oxymoron', how can a debate, discussion or talk happen is such opinionated and biased people and call themselves democrats ? Hypocrites.

[@srinivasaraju3947]

Mr Guha's writings are flat. His speeches even flatter.

[@koulster2]

Unfortunately my name will evoke emotions that might not let you realise that I am asking you sincerely brother Srinivasa, don't you notice that his speeches are gripping in my opinion because he has no pretensions and he has done a lot of homework in the topics he talks about. I don't know much about Mr. Guha but till I heard him I was already in deep love with the thought of the saints of (cultural) India and our ancient writings but I tell you the truth that I sort of disliked Nehru and I have avoided thinking about India post Swami Vivekananda ji because I think we didn't do our culture justice. I still can sense that we must have blundered because the blossoms that are expected of the tree of which we are a part of didn't happen : instead we have managed to create extreme hate right since communal riots of 1947. Our desire for seeking self respect through violence is just not stopping. My main reason to blame pandit Nehru sahib was that I thought that Pandit Nehru sahib promoted his family especially Indira ji. In my understanding till date Indira ji did a great damage to this really beautiful nation. I have managed to understand things a bit better and I don't blame Pandit Nehru sahib for promoting Indira ji. I have started growing love for people who fought against the British Imperialism.