Nishikant Kolge taught at the Department of History, Tripura University for more than eight years before joining the Centre in 2018. In his Ph.D. work in the Department of Humanities and Social Science at IIT Madras, he looked at Gandhi and his strategy to abolish the caste system in India. His book Gandhi against Caste investigates the entire range of what Gandhi said or wrote about caste divisions over a period of more than three decades: from his return to India in 1915 to his death in 1948. Interestingly, it also maps Gandhi’s own statements that undermined his stance against the caste system. These writings uncover the ‘strategist Gandhi’ who understood that social transformation had to be a slow process for the conservative but powerful section of Hindus who were not yet ready for radical reforms. He has also published several research articles in leading national and international journals and served as manuscript reviewer for OUP and referee for top journals such as EPW and Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism.
In 2017 he was a Sabarmati fellow at the Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust, Ahmedabad. Recently he has been selected for Fulbright-Nehru Post-Doctoral Fellowship 2018-19. At present he works primarily on different aspects of the life and philosophy of Gandhi.
Email: nishikant(at)csds.in
Select Publications (Click to Read)
Was Gandhi a ‘Champion of the Caste System’?: Reflections on His Practices
Was Gandhi a Racist?: His Writings in South Africa
The Politician: A Response to Arundhati Roy’s The Doctor and The Saint
गाँधी के जीवन और दर्शन को कैसे समझा जाए
