Deepak Tripathi (born 1951) is a British historian, journalist and researcher with a particular reference to South and West Asia, terrorism and United States policy. [1]
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Tripathi was born into a political family in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, India. His grandfather, Pandit Vishwambhar Dayal Tripathi, was a prominent leader in India's independence movement, Member of the Constituent Assembly, and later of the Indian Parliament.[2] His father, Krishna Dev Tripathi, was also a parliamentarian and an academic.[3]
After a year at Aligarh University[4], Tripathi graduated from Christian College, Indore in 1973 with a BA in Politics, Economics, Sociology and English. He then did a year of graduate study at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
From 1974, Tripathi worked for the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. for 3 years.
In 1977, Tripathi worked with the BBC as a South Asia correspondent, BBC News producer, and editor for the World Service Radio News. He was Afghanistan correspondent in the early 1990s in Kabul. He has reported from Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Syria.
In 2002, Tripathi completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from Edinburgh Business School of Heriot-Watt University, Scotland.
From 2002, at the University of Sussex, Tripathi researched the Cold War Afghan conflict. This led to his well-received book on Afghanistan.[5][6]
Tripathi writes on the effects of superpower rivalries in South Asia and the Middle East, and on U.S. policy in the region, for publications including Al-Ahram, History News Network, CounterPunch, AlterNet, and ZNet.[7]
Tripathi is a Member of the Political Studies Association and the Commonwealth Journalists Association.
Tripathi is respected by reviewers[8][9][10][11][12][13] for his writings on world conflicts, such as in Afghanistan, notably for his books 'Breeding Ground' and 'Overcoming The Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan'.
Marjorie Cohn, in the History News Network, writes of 'Breeding Ground': "Tripathi’s excellent work ends with a call to replace the military strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan with development, reconciliation, and reconstruction." and "Breeding Ground makes a significant contribution toward understanding the origins and triggers of terrorism. Tripathi traces the development of a ‘culture of violence’ in Afghanistan—largely due to resistance against foreign invasion—from the “U.S.-led proxy war” against the USSR to the current U.S. war." [8]
David Hillstrom, in the Foreign Policy Journal, describes 'Breeding Ground' as a "concise yet powerful book" which details the dangerously interlocking decisions and ill-thought-through strategies that inflamed the Afghan conflict.[9] According to Hillstrom, Tripathi used a broad array of sources that only recently became available from both US and Soviet archives. The tragedy is that Afghanistan, which has now been at war for 40 years, has suffered the same before, from the 'Great Game' that Tsarist Russia played with the British Empire in the 19th century; the players then as now had "simplistic strategic goals" but only "a shallow understanding" of Afghanistan itself. Hillstrom finds that Tripathi sums up the tragedy beautifully by closing his book with a quote from Tolstoy: [9]
Ramzy Baroud, in the Global Researcher, writes of 'Overcoming The Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan': "While reputable author and world renowned journalist Deepak Tripathi agrees with this grim view [of the poor outcomes of Western intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan], he doesn’t think all is lost. He believes that there is still a chance, an opportunity even to redress the injustice and reverse the terrible mistakes that were made. A compelling writer and a meticulous researcher, Tripathi’s work is both gripping and comprehensive. His latest book, 'Overcoming The Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan' serves as a glaring reminder of what military power can do when it goes unchecked, and when it is combined with religious fanaticism or misguided political ideology." [10]
Tripathi, D., & Royal Institute of International Affairs. (1989). Sri Lanka's Foreign Policy Dilemmas. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Tripathi, D. (2010). Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Washington, D.C: Potomac Books.
Tripathi, D. (2011). Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism. Washington, D.C: Potomac Books.
Tripathi, D. Journal of Foreign Relations (list of 14 articles). JOFR: D Tripathi