Nico Slate is Professor of History and Head of the Department of History at CarnegieMellon University. His research focuses on the transnational history of socialmovements in the United States and South Asia, with a particular focus on the history of strugglesagainst racism and imperialism. He is the author of four books: Colored Cosmopolitanism:The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India (Harvard University Press, 2012), The Prism of Race: W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and the Colored World ofCedric Dover (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Gandhi's Search for the Perfect Diet:Eating with the World in Mind (WashingtonUniversity Press, 2019); and Lord Cornwallis Is Dead: The Struggle for Democracy in the United States and India (Harvard UniversityPress, 2019).
<p style="margin: 6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">In 1947, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay made an unexpected visit to a gloomy government building in New Delhi to confront one of the gravest crises facing the newly independent nation-the fate of the millions of refugees pouring across the borders with Pakistan. She had no official standing, but somehow managed to arrange for a piece of land just outside the capital, where a model town would be built to house 30,000 people. This town is today’s Faridabad.</p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">This is just one of the many efforts-often forgotten-made by an indomitable woman who strove to empower others throughout her life. Born a Saraswat Brahmin in Mangalore, Kamaladevi was a performing artist, a Gandhian, a social reformer, an educationist, an institution builder, a patron of the arts, an author, a visionary. She built bridges across divides decreed by tradition, while establishing her own identity as an Indian woman finding a place for herself in a male-dominated world. Her dream was of an India that was free not just of colonial rule but of the shackles of poverty, caste oppression and gender disparities.</p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">Nico Slate’s new and definitive biography explores the life of Kamaladevi, one of the most inspiring figures of twentieth-century India.</p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">This is the third book in the Indian Lives series, edited and curated by Ramachandra Guha.</em></p>
