Deepak Tripathi

Life and career

Tripathi was born into a political family in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, India. His grandfather, Pandit Vishwambhar Dayal Tripathi, was a prominent leader in India's independence movement, Member of the Constituent Assembly, and later of the Indian Parliament. His father, Krishna Dev Tripathi, was also a parliamentarian and an academic.

After a year at Aligarh Muslim University, Tripathi graduated from Christian College, Indore in 1973 with a BA in Politics, Economics, Sociology and English. He then did a year of graduate study at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

From 1974, Tripathi worked for the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. for 3 years.

In 1977, Tripathi worked with the BBC as a South Asia correspondent, BBC News producer, and editor for the World Service Radio News. He was Afghanistan correspondent in the early 1990s in Kabul. He has reported from Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Syria.

In 2002, Tripathi completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from Edinburgh Business School of Heriot-Watt University, Scotland.

From 2002, at the University of Sussex, Tripathi researched the Cold War Afghan conflict. This led to his well-received book on Afghanistan.

In 2012, Tripathi received his Doctorate in social science from the University of Roehampton, where he was an Honorary Fellow at the Crucible Centre for Human Rights Research from 2012 to 2015, and is currently an associate. He wrote his dissertation "A Critical Study of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars" under the supervision of Professor Martin Shaw (sociologist), known for his work on war, genocide and global politics.

In 2013, Tripathi was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Tripathi writes on the effects of superpower rivalries in South Asia and the Middle East, and on U.S. policy in the region, for publications including Al Jazeera, Al-Ahram, History News Network, CounterPunch, AlterNet, and ZNet.

Reception of his work

Tripathi has received praise from various reviewers for his writings on world conflicts, such as in Afghanistan, notably for his trilogy of books 'Breeding Ground', 'Overcoming The Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan' and 'Imperial Designs'.

'Breeding Ground'

Marjorie Cohn, in the History News Network, writes of 'Breeding Ground': "Tripathi’s excellent work ends with a call to replace the military strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan with development, reconciliation, and reconstruction." and "Breeding Ground makes a significant contribution toward understanding the origins and triggers of terrorism. Tripathi traces the development of a ‘culture of violence’ in Afghanistan—largely due to resistance against foreign invasion—from the “U.S.-led proxy war” against the USSR to the current U.S. war."

David Hillstrom, in the Foreign Policy Journal, describes 'Breeding Ground' as a "concise yet powerful book" which details the dangerously interlocking decisions and ill-thought-through strategies that inflamed the Afghan conflict. According to Hillstrom, Tripathi used a broad array of sources that only recently became available from both US and Soviet archives. He writes that the tragedy is that Afghanistan, which has now been at war for 40 years, has suffered the same before, from the 'Great Game' that Tsarist Russia played with the British Empire in the 19th century; the players then as now had "simplistic strategic goals" but only "a shallow understanding" of Afghanistan itself. Hillstrom finds that Tripathi sums up the tragedy beautifully by closing his book with a quote from Tolstoy:

'Overcoming The Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan'

Ramzy Baroud, in the Global Research, writes of 'Overcoming The Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan': "While reputable author and world renowned journalist Deepak Tripathi agrees with this grim view [of the poor outcomes of Western intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan], he doesn’t think all is lost. He believes that there is still a chance, an opportunity even to redress the injustice and reverse the terrible mistakes that were made. A compelling writer and a meticulous researcher, Tripathi’s work is both gripping and comprehensive. His latest book, 'Overcoming The Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan' serves as a glaring reminder of what military power can do when it goes unchecked, and when it is combined with religious fanaticism or misguided political ideology."

'Imperial Designs'

Greta Morris, a retired US diplomat, writes in her review of 'Imperial Designs' in American Diplomacy: "As policymakers, scholars and citizens seek to understand the increasingly bitter and violent conflicts in the Middle East and the escalating anger and terrorist acts against the West (particularly the U.S.), Deepak Tripathi's Imperial Designs offers important perspectives and insights. Tripathi's book is subtitled "War, Humiliation and the Making of History," and his theme is the role of humiliation in international politics. Specifically, he argues that the humiliation of a state or people by a more powerful state (or states) through political manipulation and military defeat profoundly influences the subsequent actions of the humiliated people, including their desire for revenge." Morris concludes the review with her comment: "Tripathi's excellent summation of past events in the Middle East and his cogent analysis of their continuing implications should be required reading for all who are dealing directly with this troubled region, as well as those seeking to understand it and its relations with the United States."

Selected publications

Tripathi, D., & Royal Institute of International Affairs. (1989). Sri Lanka's Foreign Policy Dilemmas. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Tripathi, D., & Observer Research Foundation. (2008). Dialectics of the Afghanistan Conflict. New Delhi: Observer Research Foundation.

Tripathi, D. (2010). Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Washington, D.C: Potomac Books.

Tripathi, D. (2011). Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism. Washington, D.C: Potomac Books.

Tripathi, D. (2013). Imperial Designs: War, Humiliation and the Making of History. Washington, D.C: Potomac Books.

Tripathi, D. (2013). A Journey Through Turbulence: Writings of Deepak Tripathi. Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press.

Interviews