Incarnations

Driving India’s emergence onto the world stage is a rich history, shaped by remarkable individuals. Yet, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place – beyond a few mythic celebrities, we know very little about the personal struggles that have gone into making India. In Incarnations: A History of India in Fifty Lives, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, recapturing the human dimension of how the world's largest democracy came to be through the stories of the emperors, warriors, philosophers, film stars, and corporate titans who shaped the country. From Kautilya, a leader and political theorist whose works make Machiavelli’s Prince seem “harmless,” to Lakshmi Bai, the “bad-ass queen” who led violent resistance against 19th-century British colonialists, the individuals Khilnani examines inform us not just about India but the world more generally.

Sunil Khilnani is holder of the Avantha Chair and Director of the India Institute, which he established at King’s College London in 2011. Born in New Delhi, he grew up in India, Africa, and Europe, and was educated at Cambridge, where he gained his PhD in Social and Political Sciences. From 2001 to 2011, he was the Starr Foundation Professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington D.C., and Director of South Asia Studies at SAIS, a program that he established. He has been a Leverhulme Fellow, and has held fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC. , and at the Institute for Advanced Study and the American Academy, both in Berlin.

New America is pleased to welcome Dr. Khilnani for a discussion of his book and the people who have defined India’s history – and who continue to shape its present.

Follow the discussion online using #IndiaIncarnations and following @NewAmericaISP.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase by check or credit card.

Participant:

Sunil Khilnani @sunilkhilnani    
Director, India Institute, King’s College London
Author, Incarnations: India in 50 Lives

Moderator:

Peter Bergen @peterbergencnn
Director, New America's International Security Program