Chaudhury, Nirad (1897-1999), an Indian author, became noted for his views on India’s transition from British colony to independent republic. He lamented the passing of British values and their civilizing influence on India. He believed that social decay set in after the United Kingdom gave up its empire. Chaudhury angered many educated Indians with such opinions, first expressed in Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951). A second volume of autobiography was published in 1987 as Thy Hand, Great Anarch.
Nirad Chandra Chaudhury was born on Nov. 23, 1897, in Kishorganj, a village in East Bengal (now Bangladesh). He moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1927 and held a succession of jobs while he continued his education. In 1942, he moved to Delhi and joined All-India Radio, the state-run broadcasting network, as an international affairs commentator. In 1959 he wrote A Passage to England. In 1970, he left India and moved to the United Kingdom, taking up residence in Oxford. In the United Kingdom, Chaudhury was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and received a doctorate of letters from Oxford University. At the age of 99, he completed his final book, The Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse (1997), the author’s view of what he considered the moral decline of the West. He also wrote biographies—Scholar Extraordinary (1974), on Max Mueller, a German expert on India; and Clive of India: A Political Psychological Essay (1975) on Robert Clive, a British soldier and colonial administrator of the 1700’s. Chaudhury died on Aug. 1, 1999.
