Rajni Kothari (1928-2015)

Rajni Kothari the founder of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies passed away on 19 January 2015. He was a noted intellectual and a pre-eminent political scientist who radically changed the contours of the discipline of political science in India. He was known in India and abroad as a scholar and an activist for his continuing search on intellectual, political and ethical dimensions of contemporary reality. He has been involved with institutions such as the People’s Union of Civil Liberties, the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the International Foundation for Development Alternatives.

Among his many books are: Caste in Indian Politics (1973), Footsteps into the Future: Diagnosis of the Present World and a Design for an Alternative (1975), Politics in India (1982), Rethinking Development: In Search of Humane Alternatives (1989), State against Democracy: In Search of Humane Governance (1989), Transformation and Survival: In Search of Humane World Order (1989), Poverty: Human Consciousness and the Amnesia of Development (1995), Communalism in Indian Politics (1998), Memoirs: Uneasy is the Life of the Mind (2002), Rethinking Democracy (2008) and Writings of Rajni Kothari (2009).