For the past seven years, in the month of January, The Hindu has been hosting ‘Lit for Life’, its annual literature festival in Chennai. While the preparation for the next edition is already underway, the festival has introduced a new element this October called the ‘Lit for Life Annual Lecture’. Envisioned as a prelude each year to the festival in January, this will be a series of special lectures delivered by eminent thinkers, writers and speakers from various fields in India and abroad.
Bengaluru will host the first annual lecture on October 15 at the Mysore Hall of ITC Gardenia and its first speaker will be Dr. Ramachandra Guha, one of India’s renowned historians.
‘India at 70: A Historian’s Report Card’ is the topic that Dr. Guha has chosen for his lecture. “India is an ancient civilization but a relatively young nation. Still, I thought 70 years is a long enough period, covering three and a half generations, to allow us to look back at our achievements and our failures. I have decided to assess how India has done vis-a-vis the ideals of its founders,” he explained on why he chose this particular topic. “The historical retrospective seemed appropriate for a lecture hosted by The Hindu, which has at every step accompanied and documented India’s complicated journey from colony to Republic,” he added.
During the lecture, Dr. Guha hopes to examine four particular aspects of India’s journey: political, social, cultural and economic. “In each sphere, I shall outline what Gandhi and other patriots hoped we would do, and analyse whether we have met their expectations. I shall ask and answer the questions: How far are we a democratic polity? Or a just society? Or a plural culture? Or a strong and self-reliant economy? The lecture will cover a large terrain; but then India is a large country!” he said.
