Raghavan has authored and edited multiple books, which have been subject to critical acclaim. about India's strategic history, and has been a regular commentator on foreign and strategic affairs. He is a recipient of the K. Subrahmanyam Award for Strategic Studies (2011) and the
Infosys Prize for Social Sciences (2015).[1][4]
Raghavan joined the Indian Army in 1997 as a commissioned officer in the infantry. He worked for six years in the
Rajputana Rifles, serving in
Sikkim,
Rajasthan and
Jammu and Kashmir. He termed his "short service" in the Army as an "extended break", during which he figured out his future direction.[6]
He entered the academia in 2003, studying at
King's College London on an Inlaks scholarship. He worked with
Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies at King's College, receiving an MA and PhD in War Studies.[2] His Ph.D. dissertation was the basis of his first book, War and Peace in Modern India.[5]
Afterwards, Raghavan worked as a lecturer in
Defence studies at King's College, teaching there for three years. He currently works at the Carnegie India, a policy think tank in New Delhi.[3][6]
Raghavan is a prolific writer, having published three works on the strategic history of India between 2010 and 2016. He is working on three further books.[6]
In 2015, Raghavan was chosen by India's Ministry of Defence to head a team of historians working on the official history of the
Kargil War. The project was to last two years.[7] He has served as a member of the
National Security Advisory Board formed by the Indian Prime Minister.[2]
Books
War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of the Nehru Years
His first book, it covered the strategic history of
Jawaharlal Nehru's premiership and was published as part of The Indian Century Series edited by scholars
Ramachandra Guha and
Sunil Khilnani. The editors stated in the book's preface that Raghavan has set a "benchmark" for the historical study of the strategic and foreign policy issues of India. He has covered the strategic crises faced by India in the first fifteen years of its independent existence, using a range of sources and analytical depth.[8]
Scholar Kristina Roepstorff, in a book review, agreed that the book successfully illuminates the rationale behind the strategic choices made by Nehru in facing the major dilemmas during his tenure. It offers a "brilliant account" of the events that shaped Nehru's strategic thinking and his approach to crisis management. She assessed the book's original findings are highly relevant to the ongoing crises in the subcontinent. However, while the book contained excellent historical account, she found it to be short on "theoretical reflection". She also noted that the book covered a selection of case studies, mainly dealing with India's princely states and crises with neighbours but omitted the international dimensions further out, such as the crises dealing with
Goa or
Congo. She felt that further justification of the selection of cases was necessary to avert selection bias in drawing general conclusions.[9]
Shashank Joshi called the book a "commanding diplomatic history" of the Nehru years.[10]Odd Arne Westad called it "international history at its very best".[11] Scholar Jivanta Schottli called it "polished historical study",[12] and Rudra Chaudhuri said it should be considered "the single most important text on Indian strategic history".[13] Priya Chacko noted that it is meticulously researched and draws on previously untapped archival sources, such as the private papers of British officials, allowing Raghavan to circumvent the usual limitations of diplomatic history.[14]
Historian
Perry Anderson finds that Srinath Raghavan is a firm apologist for India and describes his book as a hymn to Nehru's strategism.[15]
1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh
^Chaudhuri, Rudra (October 2014). "War and Peace in Modern India: A strategic history of the Nehru years by Srinath Raghavan (Review)". Cold War History. 14 (4): 705–706.
doi:
10.1080/14682745.2014.955690.
ISSN1468-2745.
S2CID154360723.
^Chacko, Priya (July 2011). "Srinath Raghavan, (Ranikhet: Permanent Black), 2010, pp. 359". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 48 (2): 305–307.
doi:
10.1177/001946461104800211.
S2CID144338163.
^Perry Anderson (2013).
The Indian Ideology. Verso. p. 85.
ISBN978-1-78168-259-3. Footnote 46: Even such a staunch apologist for New Delhi as Srinath Raghavan, a former Indian Army officer, author of a book that is a prolonged hymn to Nehru's strategic sagacity
^Carter, David (2 September 2014). "Srinath Raghavan. 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh; Gary J. Bass. The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide". Asian Affairs. 45 (3): 519–521.
doi:
10.1080/03068374.2014.954220.
ISSN0306-8374.
S2CID161348197.
^Mohaiemen, Naeem (January 2016). "1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh. By Srinath Raghavan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. Pp. 368. ISBN 10: 0674728645; ISBN 13: 978-0674728646. - The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide. By Gary J. Bass. New York: Knopf, 2013. Pp. 528. ISBN 10: 0307700208; ISBN 13: 978-0307700209". International Journal of Asian Studies. 13 (1): 105–108.
doi:
10.1017/S1479591415000303.
ISSN1479-5914.