Peter Heehs is an American historian living in Puducherry, India who writes on modern Indian history, spirituality and religion. Much of his work focuses on the Indian freedom fighter and spiritual leader

Sri Aurobindo Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian philosopher, yogi, maharishi, poet, and Indian nationalist. He was also a journalist, editing newspapers such as ''Vande Mataram''. He joined t ...

. His publications include twelve books and more than sixty articles in journals and magazines.

Biography

Peter Heehs was born and educated in the United States but has lived in India since 1971. He has worked in the team as a researcher at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives since its founding, and has contributed to the re-editing of the '' Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library'' and ''The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo''. As a historian, Heehs has written on the swadeshi period of the

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...

and on the early phase of the

Indian revolutionary movement The Revolutionary movement for Indian Independence was the part of the Indian independence movement comprising the actions of violent underground revolutionary factions. Groups believing in armed revolution against the ruling British fall into t ...

. His 1992 study ''The Bomb in Bengal'' highlighted the importance of the Maniktala secret society, which was a predecessor of the Jugantar Group. In this book and other publications, Heehs made it clear that the Indian freedom struggle had a violent as well as a non-violent side, and that the violent revolutionaries helped prepare the country psychologically for the later mass movements led by

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, Anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure ...

. In the second edition of ''The Bomb in Bengal'' (2004), Heehs distinguished the aims and methods of early Indian revolutionaries. Heehs has also written on problems of Indian

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...

in ''History and Theory'', ''Postcolonial Studies'', and other journals. He has also contributed to popular magazines such as ''History Today''. As a scholar of religion, Heehs has edited the textbook ''Indian Religions'' and has contributed to journals and edited volumes dealing with

new religious movements A new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or t ...

in India. He has also discussed the problems of Indian communalism. Heehs's ninth book, ''The Lives of Sri Aurobindo'' (Columbia University Press, 2008) was intended for scholarly readers. It received positive reviews in the United States, but was objected to by a large number of devotees of

, who have delayed the publication of the book in India. Heehs's tenth book, ''Writing the Self'', was published by Bloomsbury in February 2013. It has been named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2013 by

Choice A choice is the range of different things from which a being can choose. The arrival at a choice may incorporate motivators and models. For example, a traveler might choose a route for a journey based on the preference of arriving at a given ...

. His eleventh book, ''Situating Sri Aurobindo: A Reader'', a collection of essays by various scholars on

's writings, with an introduction, was published by Oxford University Press in October 2013. His twelfth book, ''Spirituality without God'', was published by Bloomsbury in November 2018. Heehs was briefly in the news in April 2012 after the Indian home ministry declined to entertain an application for extension of his resident visa after April 15. Learning of the affair on March 31, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said he would review Heehs’s case. A number of prominent scholars, as well as union minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, wrote in support of Heehs to the home minister and to Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indi ...

. Leading public intellectuals

Ramachandra Guha Ramachandra "Ram" Guha (born 29 April 1958) is an Indian historian, environmentalist, writer and public intellectual whose research interests include social, political, contemporary, environmental and cricket history, and the field of economic ...

and

Pratap Bhanu Mehta Pratap Bhanu Mehta (born 1967) is an Indian academician. He was the president of the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank and was the Vice-Chancellor of Ashoka University from July 2017 to July 2019. Early life Pratap was bo ...

wrote about the issue in their newspaper columns. On April 13, the home ministry announced that it had approved a one-year extension of Heehs’s visa. The affair became a point of reference in discussions in the Indian and international press of freedom of expression, book banning, censorship, xenophobia, and visa policy.

Books

* ''India's Freedom Struggle'' (1988) * ''Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography'' (1989) * ''Modern India and World History'' (textbook, 1991) * ''The Bomb in Bengal: The Rise of Revolutionary Terrorism in India'' (1993) * ''Essential Writings of Sri Aurobindo'' (1998) * ''Nationalism, Terrorism, Communalism: Essays in Modern Indian History'' (1998) * ''Indian Religions: A Historical Reader of Spiritual Expression and Experience'' (2002) * ''Nationalism, Religion and Beyond: Writings on Politics, Society and Culture'' (2005) * ''The Lives of Sri Aurobindo'' (2008) * ''Writing the Self: Diaries, Memoirs, and the History of the Self'' (2013) * ''Situating Sri Aurobindo: A Reader'' (2013) *''Spirituality without God'' (2018)

References

External links

Heehs in Google Scholar

Heehs's publications

Skype interview on Archive.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heehs, Peter 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Sri Aurobindo Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American male non-fiction writers

Biography

See also

Books

References

External links