Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Today my guest is environmental scholar, historian and biographer Ramachandra Guha (ramachandraguha.in/) . He is the author of a number of books, including a two-volume biography of Gandhi and the award-winning book "India After Gandhi (panmacmillan.com/authors/ramachandra-guha/india-after-gandhi/9781447281887) ."
We talked about his latest book, "Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300278538/speaking-with-nature/) ." We spoke about global versus local commons, bottom up approach to environmentalism in India, urbanization, economic growth and technological progress and much more.

Recorded May 7th, 2025.


Read a full transcript (mercatus.org/ideasofindia/ramachandra-guha-origins-indian-environmentalism) enhanced with helpful links.


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Timestamps


00:00:00 - Intro


00:01:08 - Speaking with Nature


00:08:42 - Unquiet Woods


00:38:29 - Science and Progress of Environmentalism


00:47:33 - Radhakamal Mukerjee


00:55:06 - K. M. Munshi


01:03:38 - Technological Progress and Tradeoffs


01:11:22 - Jayaprakash Narayan


01:19:39 - Outro