Nirode K. Barooah, born (1937) in the north east Indian state of Assam, passed his intermediate in Arts at the Cotton College,  Guwahati in 1955. He then completed his B.A., M.A. and LL.B. at the University of Banaras (during 1955-1961). In 1961 he joined the School of Oriental and African Studies in London as a research student in modern Indian history. His field of research was the ideas of administration in British rule in India in the early nineteenth century with particular reference to North East India. In 1964 he achieved his Ph.D. for his dissertation on “David Scott in North East India: A study of British Paternalism“ which was first published in 1970 and the second, revised edition appeared in 2015. From 1965 to 1971 he taught modern history at the University of Delhi.

While teaching at the University of Delhi he also carried out extensive research on the Indian Freedom Movement with particular reference to Assam. In 1971 he, however, had to leave this research half done and proceed to Germany where he discovered a completely new field of research on German-Indian relations from 1885 to 1939. Years of research in German archives enabled him to publish several books and research papers. Some of these books are: India and the Official Germany dealing with the period of 1885-1914, Chatto: The Life and Times of an Indian Anti-Imperialist in Europe, Franz Josef Furtwängler and India: A German Trade Union Internationalist’s Extraordinary Engagement With India (co-authored with Elisabeth Barooah), Germany and the Indians: Between the Wars (2019).