Rajmohan Gandhi

Early life

His father was Devdas Gandhi, son of Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the Nation of India, was the Managing Editor of the Daily Hindustan Times. He attended St. Stephen's College, New Delhi, India. His maternal grand father was C. Rajagopalachari, second Governor General of India after Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was one of the foremost associates of Mahatma Gandhi.

Academic career and activism

Associated from 1956 with Initiatives of Change (formerly known as Moral Re-Armament), Rajmohan Gandhi has been engaged for half a century in efforts for trust-building, reconciliation and democracy and in battles against corruption and inequalities.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, he played a leading role in establishing Asia Plateau, the 68-acre (280,000 m²) conference centre of Initiatives of Change in Panchgani, in the mountains of western India. Asia Plateau has been recognized in the Indian subcontinent for its ecological contribution. During the 1975-77 Emergency in India, he was active for democratic rights personally and through his weekly journal Himmat, published in Bombay from 1964 to 1981.

His latest book, A Tale of Two Revolts: India 1857 & the American Civil War (New Delhi: Penguin India, December 2009), studies two 19th-century wars occurring in opposite parts of the world at almost the same time. His previous book, a biography of his grandfather Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire, received the prestigious Biennial Award from the Indian History Congress in 2007. It has since been published in several countries.

In 2001 he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for his Rajaji: A Life, a biography of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1878-1972), his maternal grandfather and a leading figure in India’s freedom movement, who became the first Indian Governor General, 1948-50.

His other works include Ghaffar Khan: Nonviolent Badshah of the Pakhtuns (Penguin 2004); Revenge & Reconciliation: Understanding South Asian History (Penguin, 1999); Patel: A Life, a biography of Vallabhbhai Patel (1875-1950), Deputy Prime Minister of India, 1947-50 (Navajivan, Ahmedabad, 1990); and Eight Lives: A Study of the Hindu-Muslim Encounter (SUNY, 1987). One of his earlier books, The Good Boatman: A Portrait of Gandhi, was published in 2009 in a Chinese translation in Beijing. Most recently, Rajmohan Gandhi has also penned a book titled, Punjab (Aleph Book Company 2013), which is an unprecedented historical account of undivided Punjab, from the death of Aurangzeb to the Partition.

Before teaching at the University of Illinois, he served as a research professor with the New Delhi think-tank, Centre for Policy Research. From 1985 to 1987 he edited the daily Indian Express in Madras (now Chennai), India. In 2004 he received the International Humanitarian Award (Human Rights) from the City of Champaign, and in 1997 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of law from the University of Calgary (Canada) and an honorary doctorate of philosophy from Obirin University, Tokyo. He currently also serves as a Jury Member, Nuremberg International Human Rights Award, and Co-chair of the Centre for Dialogue & Reconciliation, Gurgaon, India.

Politics

In 1989, Gandhi unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha election against Rajiv Gandhi in Amethi. He served (1990–92) in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Indian Parliament) and led the Indian delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva in 1990. In the Indian Parliament he was the convener of the all-party joint committee of both houses addressing the condition of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

On February 21, 2014, he joined the Aam Aadmi Party. He contested the 2014 general election from the East Delhi constituency and lost.

Controversy

Rajmohan Gandhi was one of the persons leading the mob of Aam Admi Party members that attacked Bhartiya Janta Party office in New Delhi, prior to the general elections of 2014.

Books

1. Why Gandhi Still Matters: An Appraisal of the Mahatma’s Legacy
2. Understanding the Founding Fathers: An Enquiry into the Indian Republic’s Beginnings
3. Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten
4. A Tale of Two Revolts
5. Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire
6. Ghaffar Khan: Nonviolent Badshah of the Pakhtuns
7. Understanding the Muslim Mind
8. Rajaji: A Life
9. Revenge & Reconciliation: Understanding South Asian History
10. The Good Boatman
11. Patel: A Life
12. Eight Lives: A Study of the Hindu-Muslim Encounter

Personal life

Rajmohan Gandhi is married to Usha. They have two children, Supriya and Devadatta.a