Sanjaya Baru is Distinguished Fellow, United Services Institution of India (USI) He has been editor of India's major financial newspapers, The Economic Times, Financial Express and Business Standard. He was Media Advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (2004-09) and Director for Geo-economics and Strategy, International Institute of Strategic Studies, London (2011-16).
He was Secretary-General, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (2017-18). He is Founder-Trustee, Forum for National Security Studies and was member of India’s National Security Advisory Board (1999-2001). He was member of the Governing Board of the Centre for Policy Research and Visiting Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore and Indian School of Public Policy, Delhi. He was professor of economics at University of Hyderabad and Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations. He was also member India-ASEAN Eminent Persons Group, 2010. He is an Independent Director on the board of Wockhardt Ltd.
His publications include The Strategic Consequences of India’s Economic Rise (2006); India and the World: Essays on Geo-economics and Foreign Policy( 2016); The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh (2014); 1991: How PV Narasimha Rao Made History (2016); Powers Shifts and Trade Blocs (Editor, 2015); The Bombay Plan: A Blueprint for Economic Resurgence (Editor, 2018); Beyond Covid's Shadow: Mapping Indian Economy's Resurgence (Editor, 2020); India's Power Elite: Caste, Class and a Cultural Revolution, (Penguin Viking, 2021); The New Cold War: Henry Kissinger and the Rise of China, (HarperCollins, 2021).
India's Power Elite explores the nature of power and elitism in postcolonial India. Its starting point is India's political transition in the twenty-first century, with the Congress Party's marginalisation and the staging of a cultural revolution epitomised by the growth of Hindu majoritarianism. Baru dissects the morphology of India's power elite, which includes feudal gentry relics, kulaks, a metropolitan business class, civil servants, and a cultural elite of opinion-makers. He also looks at how caste, class, and culture had a role in forming a "New India." This book will appeal to both students and people in positions of power, as it is written for the socially engaged reader.
When The Accidental Prime Minister was first released, it was greeted with enthusiasm by readers who saw it as a window into the power dynamics in Lutyens' Delhi.' Most members of the "Delhi Durbar," on the other hand, chastised me for doing exactly that—opening a window to the outside after entering its entrance. This book examines the nature of Indian elites and their power, attempting to comprehend how political change brought about by the demise of the Congress and the emergence of the BJP is transforming the power elite's morphology. In contemporary India, I investigate the dynamics of political, economic, and cultural power.