Pavan K. Varma studied history at St. Stephen’s College and law at the University of Delhi before joining the Indian Foreign Service in 1976. Over the next three decades, he served as Press Secretary to the President of India, High Commissioner in Cyprus, Director of the Nehru Centre in London, Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), and Ambassador to Bhutan. Since then, he has been a Rajya Sabha MP and the national general secretary and national spokesman of the Janata Dal United JD (U) (2016-20) and the national vice-president of the All-India Trinamool Congress (2021-22). In addition to public service, Mr. Varma is a reputed writer, translator, and columnist. He is the author of several books on contemporary India – The Great Indian Middle Class (1998), Being Indian: The Truth About Why the 21st Century Will Be India’s (2004), Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity (2010), Chanakya’s New Manifesto: To Resolve the Crisis within India (2013), The New Indian Middle Class: The Challenge of 2014 and Beyond (2014), and Chanakya’s View: Understanding India in Transition (2019). His other notable books are on Indian civilization and culture including Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism’s Greatest Thinker (2018), The Great Hindu Civilisation: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward (2021) and The Greatest Ode to Lord Ram: Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas Selections & Commentaries (2023). Finally, he is also an accomplished translator known for his translations of poems by Kaifi Azmi, Gulzar and Atal Behari Vajpayee.

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