Arvind Narayan Das (popularly known as Aravind N. Das) was a

social scientist Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fr ...

and a documentary filmmaker from

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West ...

, eastern

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

.. He was influenced by

Naxalbari Naxalbari (also spelled Naksalbari) is a village in the Naxalbari CD block in the Siliguri subdivision of the Darjeeling district in the state of West Bengal, India. Naxalbari is famous for being the site of a 1967 revolt that would eventuall ...

, the peasant rebellion, while a student at St. Stephen's College,

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders wi ...

in late 1960s. Journalist Harsh Sethi wrote of him: "Rarely before, or since, at least in post-Independence

, had otherwise comfortably placed students taken the cause of the underdog to heart. Among those who were permanently marked by the experience of the ‘spring thunder’ was Arvind N. Das." His experiences in the period he spent underground as part of the Naxalites movement, shaped most of his life thereafter. He joined the ''Times of India'' as a research editor, and pioneered the books that the ''Times'' group produced on its sesquicentennial celebrations. In 1994 he left the ''Times'' and helped co-found Asia Pacific Communication Associates Pvt. Ltd. (APCA) with Dileep Padgaonkar, Anikendra Nath Sen and Darryl D'Monte. In 1995 he began travelling around India for the 18-part documentary ''India Invented'', inspired by D.D. Kosambi's vision of Indian history. It took more than two years to make, and was a defining moment of Das's career. Das was also the founder-editor of ''Biblio'', a review of books. At his sudden death due to heart attack in 2000, Indian journalist Dileep Padgaonkar wrote, "But Arvind's real obsession, the one that shaped his thinking, guided his written output and nourished his conversations, was his native

. It can be said without exaggeration that no contemporary

n thinker has spoken and written about the glorious past, the dismal present and potential for a great future of this state with such lofty eloquence as he did. In his eyes,

was a metaphor for

itself. At a pinch, he would have deemed it to be the very centre of the universe. While he loathed its venal, caste-ridden, ineffective governance, the violent nature of its society, its decrepit intellectual and cultural life and the slothful ways of its elite, he never missed an opportunity to recall its rich cultural and spiritual legacy, the noble character of its long-suffering people and the revolutionary potential of its youth. Two of his books - ''The Republic of Bihar'' and ''Changel: The Biography of a Village'' - bear vivid testimony to what the state meant to him."Always against the tide
/ref>

References and footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Das, Arvind Narayan Journalists from Bihar Year of birth missing