Professor Sunil Khilnani from the King's India Institute in London, on the life and legacy of the Indian business tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of Reliance Industries. The son of a penurious schoolteacher, Ambani credited himself with an al

MF Husain: Hindustan Is Free

Mar 24th, 2016 14m 6s

Professor Sunil Khilnani, from the King's India Institute in London, looks at controversy over the Indian artist MF Husain, who spent the last days of his life in exile. Husain is considered by some to be the face of modern art in India but

Charan Singh: A Common Cause

Mar 23rd, 2016 14m 9s

Professor Sunil Khilnani, from the King's India Institute in London, explores the life and legacy of Charan Singh, the lawyer turned politician who championed the cause of India's farmers. Singh is remembered today as the politician who took on

Satyajit Ray: India without Elephants

Mar 22nd, 2016 13m 44s

Sunil Khilnani explores the life and work of filmmaker Satyajit Ray.In the history of Indian cinema, there is a Before Ray, and an After. As Sunil Khilnani says, “he’s the first truly modern filmmaker we have.” But Satyajit Ray’s career in Indi

Indira Gandhi: The Centre of Everything

Mar 21st, 2016 14m 7s

Professor Sunil Khilnani, from the King's India Institute in London, looks at the life of Indira Gandhi, India's first woman prime minister, whose darkest moment was a two year period known as "the emergency". Jails filled up with her critics

Subbulakshmi: Opening Rosebuds

Mar 18th, 2016 14m 19s

Sunil Khilnani explores the life of south Indian singer MS Subbulakshmi.Subbulakshmi’s singing voice, striking from the start, would ultimately range three octaves. A perfectionist, she had the capacity to range across genres but narrowed over

Krishna Menon: Sombre Porcupine

Mar 17th, 2016 14m 18s

Professor Sunil Khinani, from the King's India Institute in London, looks at the life of Krishna Menon, the abrasive Indian diplomat and statesman who invented the concept of non-alignment. He was one of the most reviled figures of the Cold War

Sheikh Abdullah: Chains of Gold

Mar 16th, 2016 14m 17s

Sunil Khilnani explores the life of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, the Lion of Kashmir.Born in Srinagar as a burden, Abdullah’s father died before he was born. Dispossessed of their share of family property, Abdullah and his two elder brothers were

Raj Kapoor: The Politics of Love

Mar 15th, 2016 14m 14s

Professor Sunil Khilnani, from the King's India Institute, looks at the life of the celebrated actor and movie director Raj Kapoor who attracted a huge following well before the term 'Bollywood' became known. Kapoor started making films, just

Bhimrao Ambedkar: Building Palaces on Dung Heaps

Mar 14th, 2016 14m 20s

Professor Sunil Khilnani, from the King's India Institute, looks at the life of Bhimrao Ambedkar, champion of the community previously known as 'untouchables' whom he renamed as Dalits. Ambedkar, who was a Dalit himself and fought against cas

Manto: The Unsentimentalist

Mar 11th, 2016 14m 13s

Sunil Khilnani explores the life and work of India's master of the short story Saadat Hasan Manto.Manto didn't fuss much over his sentences. He wrote in a rush, at hack speed, for money – and often legless drunk. His raw, visceral, personal

Jinnah: The Chess Player

Mar 10th, 2016 14m 12s

Professor Sunil Khilnani, from the King's India Institute in London, looks at the life and legacy of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Descriptions of his early life do not sound like someone who would go on to lead India's Muslims:

Gandhi: In The Palm of Our Hands

Mar 9th, 2016 14m 18s

Professor Sunil Khilnani explores the life and legacy of the Mahatma Gandhi: lawyer, politician and leader of the nationalist movement against British rule in India. He is generally admired outside India, but is the subject of heated debate and

Subhas Chandra Bose: A Touch of the Abnormal

Mar 8th, 2016 14m 9s

Sunil Khilnani explores the life of political leader and freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose.When Bose's father named his ninth child Subhas – "one of good speech" – he wasn't imagining the boy applying an oratorical gift to fervent radicali

Amrita Sher-Gil: This is Me

Mar 7th, 2016 14m 9s

Sunil Khilnani tells the story of the painter Amrita Sher-Gil – 20th century India’s first art star – who died under shrouded circumstances in 1941 at the age of just 28.Sher-Gil left a vortex of stories behind her: about her narcissism and her

Iqbal: Death for Falcons

Mar 4th, 2016 14m 11s

Sunil Khilnani tells the story of the poet and philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal.One of India’s most patriotic, eloquent writers, Iqbal is also celebrated as Pakistan’s national poet. In his spare time, he wrote one of the first Urdu textbooks on

Periyar: Sniper of Sacred Cows

Mar 3rd, 2016 14m 19s

Sunil Khilnani tells the story of EV Ramaswamy Naicker, known to his followers as Thanthai Periyar: the Great Man – a self-conscious dig at his nemesis Gandhi, the Great Soul.Periyar is best known in India as an anti-Brahmin activist, a rationa

Visvesvaraya: Extracting Moonbeams from Cucumbers

Mar 2nd, 2016 14m 18s

Sunil Khilnani explores the life and work of engineer, planner and politician Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya.Visvesvaraya was a frail bureaucrat who walked hunched, as if the burden of state-building literally pressed down on his shoulders. But in t

Tagore: Unlocking Cages

Mar 1st, 2016 14m 16s

Sunil Khilnani tells the story of the Bengali writer and thinker Rabindranath Tagore.Born in 1861 To a prosperous Bengal family, Rabindranath Tagore went on to win India’s first Nobel Prize, for literature, in 1913. While India has often been f

Ramanujan: The Elbow of Genius

Feb 29th, 2016 14m 19s

Sunil Khilnani tells the story of the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.We are accustomed to mathematicians as enigmatic beings, but the case of Ramanujan, one of the most important mathematicians of the twentieth century, is particularly myste

Chidambaram Pillai: Swadeshi Steam

Feb 26th, 2016 14m 17s

Sunil Khilnani explores the thwarted revolutionary ambitions of Chidambaram Pillai.Chidambaram Pillai was a feisty baby-faced lawyer from Tuticorin in southern India. His is one of the many, largely forgotten stories of failure that litter the

Annie Besant: An Indian Tomtom

Feb 25th, 2016 14m 10s

Sunil Khilnani explores the journey of Annie Besant, from late Victorian campaigner and social reformer in England to leader of India’s Congress Party.Possessed of a self-belief some thought inappropriate for a woman, Annie Besant’s struggle ag

Jamsetji Tata: Swadeshi Capitalist

Feb 25th, 2016 14m 10s

Professor Sunil Khilnani explores the life and legacy of the industrialist Jamsetji Tata, one of a series of remarkable individuals who have made India what it is today. Tata played a vitally important role in establishing India’s manufacturin

Vivekananda: Bring All Together

Feb 24th, 2016 14m 13s

Sunil Khilnani explores the life and work of Swami Vivekananda, a social and religious reformer who became India’s first global guru, credited with introducing yoga to the west.Vivekananda was a restless, baby-faced monk from Calcutta. And his

Deen Dayal: Courtier with a Camera

Feb 22nd, 2016 14m 7s

Professor Sunil Khilnani returns with Incarnations. In the first programme he profiles the pioneering photographer Lala Deen Dayal.Born in 1844, Lala Deen Dayal would go on to become the court photographer for the fabulously wealthy sixth Ni