Rudrangshu Mukherjee is Chancellor, and Professor of History, Ashoka University. He is internationally acclaimed as a historian of the revolt of 1857 in India. His first book, Awadh in Revolt, 1857-58: A Study of Popular Resistance (1984)  has become a standard reference on the subject. He has looked at the 1857 rebellion in four other books: Spectre of Violence: The 1857 Kanpur Massacres (1998), Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero? (2005), Dateline 1857: Revolt against the Raj (2008) and The Year of Blood: Essays on 1857 (2014). He has also authored and edited several books on other themes, including The Penguin Gandhi Reader (1993), Politics and Trade in the Indian Ocean World: Essays in Honour of Ashin Das Gupta (1999), Remembered Childhood: Essays in Honour of Andre Beteille (2010), New Delhi: The Making of a Capital (2009), Great Speeches of Modern India (2011), Nehru & Bose: Parallel Lives (2014), Twilight Falls on Liberalism (2018), Oxford India Short Introduction: Jawaharlal Nehru (2018), Changing India, Vol. V, Part I : The Prime Minister Speaks (2019), Changing India, Vol. V, Part II : The Prime Minister Speaks (2019), Tagore and Gandhi : Walking Alone, Walking Together (2021), A Begum and a Rani : Hazrat Mahal and Lakshmibai in 1857 (2021), The Best of Tagore (2023) and A New History of India : From its Origins to the Twenty-First Century (2023). Rudrangshu Mukherjee has taught History at the University of Calcutta and held visiting appointments at Princeton University, University of Manchester and University of California, Santa Cruz. He was the Editor of the Editorial Pages at The Telegraph, Kolkata.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi is Distinguished Professor of History and Politics, Ashoka University. He has been in administrative positions in Tamil Nadu and in Delhi, as a member of the Indian Administrative Service. He was Secretary to the President of India (1997-2000), Director of the Nehru Centre in the High Commission of India, London, High Commissioner for India in South Africa, Lesotho, Sri Lanka, and Ambassador of India in Norway and Iceland. He was Governor of West Bengal from 2004 to 2009. The University of Natal, South Africa, conferred a Doctorate of Laws honoris causa on him in 1999, and the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, a Doctorate of Letters honoris causa in 2001. The University of Calcutta conferred on him a Doctorate of Literature, honoris causa in 2019. He received the Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Award of the University of Mysore in 2016, the Lal Bahadur Shastri Award in 2016 and the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Award in 2018. In the Spring of 2020, he was a Fellow at the Center for Contemporary South Asia, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, USA. 

Gopalkrishna Gandhi has authored several books including a novel, Saranam (Refuge) (2010), and a play Dara Shukoh (2010). Other acclaimed publications include Gandhi Is Gone, Who Will Guide Us Now? (2007), Of a Certain Age: Twenty Life-Sketches (2011), My Dear Bapu – Correspondence between C. Rajagopalachari and Mohandas K. Gandhi (2012), Abolishing the Death Penalty: Why India Should Say No to Capital Punishment (2016), Gandhi: Essential Writings (2018), A Frank Friendship, Gandhi and Bengal: A Descriptive Chronology (ed. 2019), Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: Restless as Mercury – My Life as a Young Man (ed. 2021), Scorching Love: Letters from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to his son Devadas (with Tridip Suhrud, 2022), I Am an Ordinary Man: India’s Struggle for Freedom (1914–1948)(ed.2023), The Undying Light — A Personal History of Independent India (2025). He has also translated Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy into Hindi (Koi Achchha Sa Ladka).