16 Facts About Sanjeev Sanyal

Sanjeev Sanyal is the Chancellor of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, and has written several books on Indian history to mixed reviews.

Sanjeev Sanyal was born in Kolkata and studied at St Xavier's School and St James' School.

Sanjeev Sanyal received a Bachelor's degree in economics from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University.

Sanjeev Sanyal then went to St John's College, University of Oxford, where he received a BA in philosophy, politics and economics in 1992, he was a Rhodes scholar, and received an MSc in Economics in 1994.

Sanjeev Sanyal worked as chief economist for South and Southeast Asia at Deutsche Bank until 2008, leaving to research and write Land of the Seven Rivers, and returned in 2011.

Sanjeev Sanyal has served on the Future City Sub-Committee of the Singapore government tasked with building a long-term vision for the city-state.

In March 2023, Sanyal led the first edition of the Delhi University Literature Festival as its patron, alongside Swapan Dasgupta as the festival director.

Sanjeev Sanyal has been a vocal critic of Nehruvian socialism, which he deems to have stemmed from an "inward-looking cultural attitude".

Nehru and P C Mahalanobis are criticised by Sanyal for treating the economy as a "mechanical toy", leaving little scope for the flourish of private enterprises, and ultimately throttling creativity.

Sanjeev Sanyal praises the 1991 liberalisation reforms as the harbinger of Indian Renaissance, and argues for the application of Complex Adaptive Systems framework to economic issues.

Sanjeev Sanyal blames the Nehruvian project for having established Ashoka as a "great king", and stresses on the urgent need of a post-socialist reading of history.

In deconstructing the narrative of Ashoka, Sanjeev Sanyal failed to apply source-criticism and imposed a host of anachronistic categories on the past; likewise, Sanjeev Sanyal remained oblivious of recent scholarship on Mauryan India and misrecognised a shastra of political economy, as it developed in Ancient India, as a manual of Mauryan statecraft.

Sanjeev Sanyal was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship in 2007 for his work on urban issues.

Sanjeev Sanyal has been an Adjunct Fellow of the Institute of Policy Studies at the National University of Singapore and Senior Fellow of IDFC Institute.

Sanjeev Sanyal has been a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London, visiting scholar at Oxford University, adjunct fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, and a senior fellow of the World Wide Fund for Nature.

Sanjeev Sanyal is an occasional columnist for the Hindustan Times, Project Syndicate, The Economic Times, Live Mint, Business Standard, Swarajya, and several other publications.