Rasheed Kidwai is an Indian journalist –author and political analyst with ,, and . He is a visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation, a leading think-tank of South Asia. Lucknow-born Kidwai tracks Indian government, political parties, community affairs and Hindi cinema. Kidwai is considered specialist on India’s grand old party, the Indian National Congress and Gandhis -- Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi. He is the author of the book, Sonia, A Biography. He also wrote a book based on Congress Party headquarters; 24, Akbar Road.
Personal life
Education
Kidwai is a graduate from St Stephen’s College, Delhi . His school was Centennial School, Lucknow , Anglo Arabic School, Delhi and Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan, New Delhi . Kidwai did his master’s in mass communication research from University of Leicester where had gone on a fellowship given by , UK.
Family
Hailing from a prominent family from Daryabad, Barabanki, Kidwai’s maternal grandfather was Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi, a noted English and Urdu commentator of the Quran. Kidwai’s wife Dr Farah Kidwai is Scientist ‘G’ DRDO, ministry of Defence, Government of India. His uncle Dr. Mohammad Hashim Kidwai was a member of parliament, Rajya Sabha . Some of Kidwai’s close relatives includes , Director of Aligarh Muslim University’s Academic Staff College, Dr. Shafey Kidwai, Sahitya Academy winner and Head of the Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, AMU, , Saad Mustafa Hashmi and Dr M Saleem Kidwai, former professor of political science, JNU.
Career
Formerly Associate Editor of The Telegraph, Calcutta, Kidwai is a regular political commentator on various television networks, radio programmes and newspapers. Kidwai is a columnist with , Chandigarh, , , Blog, , , Dainik Jagran, Amar Ujala, Prabhat Khabar, Rediff, The Quint and a range of other English, Hindi and Urdu publications.
Books
1: SONIA - A Biography Kidwai is author of . The book has been translated into Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and revised in 2009 and 2011. 2: 24 Akbar Road Kidwai’s , -- A Short History of The People Behind The Fall and Rise of The Congress is considered as an important source of Congress history. 3: Neta Abhineta: Star Power in Indian Politics In 2018, Kidwai wrote a book on Bollywood film stars who entered political arena. The book titled, tracked political journey of Prithviraj Kapoor, Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Amitabh Bhachan, Jaya Bachchan, Rekha, Mithun Chakraborty, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Govinda, Shatrughan Sinha, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna, Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Jaya Prada, Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Paresh Rawal and Raj Babbar. 4: Ballot - Ten Episodes That Have Shaped India’s Democracy Kidwai has authored, tracing how elections are fought in the country. The anecdotal account has also focussed on many leading players of Indian politics such as N T Ramarao, Bal Thackeray, Mayawati and Mamata Banerjee.
