Episode 14 Aakash Singh Rathore
On Politics, Plato, Nietzsche & Nihilism
Aakash is a public intellectual of international repute, author of nine books, including the recently released Becoming Babasaheb: The Life and Times of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedbar (Harper Collins, 2023), and the best-selling Ambedkar's Preamble: A Secret History of the Constitution of India (Penguin, 2020). His forthcoming book, Will AI Murder Us All? will be published by Penguin in 2025. He has also edited over a dozen books ranging from political philosophy and law to literature and religion, including B. R. Ambedkar's The Buddha and His Dhamma: A Critical Edition (Oxford University Press, 2011), and more recently, B. R. Ambedkar: The Quest for Justice (a box set of 5 volumes, Oxford University Press, 2021). His Hegel's India (Oxford University Press) was short listed for the Non-fiction Book of the Year at the Tata Literature Live Book Awards 2017. Rathore's books have been reviewed and featured in Scroll.in, The Wire, Outlook, The Caravan, The Quint, The Print, Livemint, The Week, EPW, The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Tribune, Deccan Herald, and many other popular print and online media outlets.
Aakash has taught Politics, Philosophy, and Law at premier institutions such as Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Delhi, and is the only professor to hold joint appointments at both Ashoka University and Jindal Global University. He has also held many international professorships, including at UPenn and Rutgers University (in the USA), the University of Toronto (Canada), Humboldt University, Berlin (Germany), and the LUISS University, Rome (Italy). He is International Fellow at ETHOS, Rome, and was previously Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.
Aakash serves as the Series Editor of the 15-volume "Rethinking India" book series (Penguin 2020-25), and was co-editor (with Ashis Nandy) of its first volume, Vision for a Nation. He is also Series Editor for "Religion and Democracy: Reconceptualising Religion, Culture, and Politics in Global Context" (published by Oxford since 2015) as well as the long-running international book series, "Ethics, Human Rights and Global Political Thought" (published by Routledge since 2011).
Aakash writes the popular monthly column "Poorva Paksha" for the Deccan Herald, along with numerous bylines in The Indian Express, Outlook magazine, The Times of India, Firstpost, Huffington Post, The Qunit, The Print, Scroll.in, and other magazines and papers. Rathore is also a top-ranking triathelete, and finished eight gruelling Ironman Triathlons, known as the world's most difficult one-day sporting event. He has featured, both as an athlete and as an author, on the Asia News Network, News18, The Caravan, Pragati podcast, The Seen and the Unseen podcast, Deccan Herald, The Sunday Times, The Hindu, The National, and NDTV. He has also spoken at the Jaipur LitFest, The Times of India Delhi LitFest, the Vidarbha LitFest, the Bangalore LitFest, and other litfests around the world. He regularly delivers talks, lectures, workshops and courses throughout India and abroad.
Read more about Aakash here.
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