Samrat Choudhury

Samrat Choudhury

Associate Professor of Practice

Centre for Writing


Contact Information

Samrat’s research interests span questions of identity and belonging, the political history of Northeast India and its relation to the “idea of India”, and the Brahmaputra River, on all of which he has written or edited books and published numerous media articles. He is lately interested in and teaching courses on topics including artificial intelligence and its relation to writing and reading, and media and information literacy in an AI age.

Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical), Sardar Patel University, Gujarat

26+ years of experience as a journalist, author, editor, and now an academic.

  • Samrat was the sole Fellow selected from India for the Asian Leadership Fellow Programme run by the Japan Foundation and the International House of Japan in Tokyo in 2018.
  • He is also a Chevening South Asia Journalism Programme alumnus, and was one of six Indians selected for this prestigious fellowship at the University of Westminster, London, in 2019.
  • As an author, he was the recipient of writing grants from the Swiss Arts Council to work on Indo-Swiss collaborative projects with the Swiss writers Esther Banz and the late David Collin.

  • His authored books include Northeast India: A Political History, published in the UK and US by Hurst, London and in India by HarperCollins; The Braided River: A Journey Along the Brahmaputra, also published by HarperCollins, and The Urban Jungle, a novel published by Penguin which was nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize.
  • Books he has edited include But I Am One of You: Northeast India and the Struggle to Belong, and Insider Outsider: Belonging and Unbelonging in Northeast India.
  • Book chapters include ones on Will the pandemic bring HRM 4.0 closer to home? in Human & Technological Resource Management (HTRM): New Insights into Revolution 4.0 edited by Payal Kumar, Anirudh Agarwal and Pawan Budhwar, published by Emerald Publishing, UK, and How political dynamics within Northeast India influences connectivity in Northeast India and Japan: Engagement Through Connectivity edited by Mayumi Murayama, Sanjoy Hazarika and Preeti Gill, published by Routledge, India.
  • He has also contributed short stories on varied themes in anthologies of Indian writing in English, and a graphic novella published in Switzerland and India that was later adapted into a play with an international cast and staged at the National School of Drama in Delhi.
  • Several of his writings have appeared in translation in German, Italian, and Spanish.

  • Samrat has been an invited speaker or panellist at literature festivals including the Jaipur Literature Festival, the Dhaka Literature Festival, the Apeejay Kolkata Literature Festival, the Shillong Literature Festival, the Hyderabad Literature Festival, and the Aizawl Literature Festival.
  • He has also given guest lectures at universities including Ashoka University, Ahmedabad University, and Delhi University.
  • He was among the Indian delegates at a conference on South Asia at Wilton Park, UK, 2004.

  • Samrat’s byline has appeared in all major English language newspapers and magazines in India, including the Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Economic Times, India Today, Outlook, and Caravan, and journals including Economic & Political Weekly.
  • At various times, he has written regular columns for The Hindustan Times, The Asian Age, DNA, and Firstpost.
  • He has also written reportage and analysis for global publications including The New York Times (USA), Granta (UK), The Japan Times (Japan), Reportagen (Switzerland) and Le Monde Diplomatique (Germany/Europe), among others.

Samrat has worked as Consulting Editor for various newspapers around India during his journalism career, advising the publications on editorial matters. He has also appeared as a commentator on national TV shows, international documentaries, and popular podcasts.

He was co-founder of Partition Studies Quarterly, a pioneering journal-magazine focused on the untold history of Partition and its impacts on Northeast India.

Samrat ran a workshop on professional communication and critical thinking for a cohort of budding entrepreneurs who were part of the Naropa Fellowship Program, Ladakh. This Fellowship, designed to promote entrepreneurial leadership, was co-founded by Ashoka University founder Dr Pramath Raj Sinha.