Justice Ahmadi Distinguished Lecture 2025 | Inaugural Lecture by Ramachandra Guha

The National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru and the Ahmadi Foundation are jointly organising the inaugural lecture of the Justice Ahmadi Distinguished Lecture Series on July 12, 2025. The lecture will be delivered by historian and biographer Ramachandra Guha on the topic ‘What would Dr. Ambedkar make of India Today?’ It will be held at the Bangalore International Centre (BIC) auditorium at 11 am. 

The lecture series is part of the Justice Ahmadi Initiative on Rule of Law, Democracy and Social Justice established in honour of, and to preserve and promote the legacy of former Chief Justice of India, Aziz Mushabber Ahmadi.

Please note, RSVP is mandatory for anyone attending the event including members of the NLS community. To RSVP, click here.

Abstract of the lecture 

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar is remembered and admired for many things: for his heroic, lifelong, campaign to eradicate the evil of untouchability; for his scholarly contributions as an economist and social theorist; for the social movements he led and the political parties he founded; for the educational institutions he nurtured; for his critical role in overseeing and directing the framing of the Constitution; for the brilliant books, essays and pamphlets that he authored on a variety of subjects.

This lecture will focus on Ambedkar as a visionary and deeply insightful theorist of constitutional democracy. By juxtaposing what he said in his speeches in the Constituent Assembly to the social and political realities of contemporary India, Guha will demonstrate how his ideas remain of compelling relevance to us today. While the core of the talk will be on Ambedkar the political theorist, it will end by briefly comparing his  legacy with that of other remarkable Indians of his generation, such as Jawaharlal Nehru, M K Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. 

About the speaker 

Ramachandra Guha is a historian and biographer based in Bengaluru. His books include a pioneering environmental history, The Unquiet Woods (University of California Press, 1989); an award-winning social history of cricket, A Corner of a Foreign Field (Picador, 2002); and a landmark history of the Republic, India after Gandhi (Macmillan/Ecco Press, 2007; third revised edition, 2023). Having previously taught at Yale University, the London School of Economics, and the Indian Institute of Science, he is currently Distinguished University Professor at Krea University.