RUDRANGSHU MUKHERJEE is Chancellor and Professor of History at Ashoka University of which he was the founding Vice Chancellor. He was educated at Calcutta Boys’ School, Presidency College, Calcutta, JNU and St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He was awarded a DPhil in Modern History by the University of Oxford.

He taught in the department of history, Calcutta University, and held visiting appointments at Princeton University, Manchester University and the University of California, Santa Cruz. From 1993 to 2014 he was the Editor, Editorial Pages, The Telegraph. He is the author of many books—these include Nehru & Bose: Parallel Lives; Awadh in Revolt 1857–58: A Study of Popular Resistance; Spectre of Violence:

The Massacres in Kanpur in 1857; The Year of Blood: Essays on 1857, Dateline 1857: Revolt against the Raj. He is the editor of Great Speeches of Modern India and The Penguin Gandhi Reader and the co-author of New Delhi: The Making of a Capital and India: Then and Now.