Above: Indira Gandhi, one of the fifty figures who has shaped India's history and the country's first female Prime Minister.
One of the most popular programmes on Radio 4 when it aired, the series brought the missing element of Indian history to the fore - it's people.
Figures that have shaped the histories of America, Europe and even China, Professor Khilnani says, are well documented, yet he said: "Indian history is a curiously unpeopled place. Ask most people in the West – and many in India – to name a thinker, ruler, or spiritual leader who preceded the 20th-century trinity of Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, and you’re in for some long, awkward silence."