An Indian Political Life: Charan Singh and Congress Politics, 1937 to 1961 focuses on the role of Charan Singh in the politics of the period while providing a broader perspective on the major issues, controversies, and developments of the time. The book is the result of a careful study of Charan Singh's personal collection of political files coupled with a series of extensive interviews with politicians, public personalities, and local people. It provides an account of the principal issues and events of the period, including Hindu-Muslim relations, the conflict between the Nehruvian goal of rapid industrialization and the desires of those favoring primary attention to agriculture, issues of law and order, the rise of corruption and criminality in politics, the place of caste and status in a modernizing society, and the pervasive factional politics characteristic of the era. This work is much more than the biography of an important politician; it is also an analysis of issues, movements, and political conflicts that marked the late pre-Independence and early post-Independence era. This book is the first volume of a multi-volume work on The Politics of Northern India: 1937 to 1987.

Paul R Brass is Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. He has published numerous books and articles on comparative and South Asian politics, ethnic politics, and collective violence. His work has been based on extensive field research in India during numerous visits since 1961. 

He has been a University of Washington faculty member and Professor, Department of Political Science, and The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies since 1965. He received his BA in 1958, Government, Harvard College; his MA in 1959, Political Science, University of Chicago; and his PhD in 1964, Political Science, University of Chicago. 

His teaching specializations include: comparative politics (South Asia), ethnicity and nationalism, as well as collective violence. 

Prof. Brass has received Fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, 1994¿95; Faculty Research Fellowships, American Institute of Indian Studies: 1993, 1982¿ 83, 1973, 1966¿76; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1972¿73; Grants for Research on South Asia, American Council of Learned Societies and Social Science Research Council, 1966¿67, 1973¿74, 1977¿78, 1982¿83, amongst others. 

In 2008, Brass received the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation¿s Emeritus Fellowship. 

In 2012, Professor Brass was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship grant for the academic year 2012¿13, which allowed him to carry out further research in India during his stay of nine months. During that period he was affiliated with the Centre for the Study of Developing societies, Delhi.