Amrita Shah is an Indian journalist and scholar. She became the first female editor of the men's magazine Debonair, and a co-founding editor of India's Elle. Her work has included a series of articles on Mumbai's organised crime, a biography of Indian space researcher Vikram Sarabhai, a study of the city of Ahmedabad, and two books on her research of the effects of television in India.
Her major works have been supported by several awarded fellowships, including from the New India Foundation, Fulbright Programme, Nantes Institute for Advanced Study Foundation, Homi Bhabha Fellowship Council, and the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University.
Shah has been editor for the Indian Express, and has also written for Mumbai's Imprint Magazine.
Career
Amrita Shah graduated in 1983 in English literature from Elphinstone College, Mumbai. She subsequently freelanced for Time, and authored a series of articles on Mumbai's organised crime.
In October 1991, she was the men's magazine Debonair's editor at the launch of KamaSutra condoms advertisements; the magazine sold out in just a few days. According to Shah, the rush to buy the issue had little to do with the editing, but more to do with the images in the adverts. Unusual for its time, she was its first female editor. In 1996 she became a co-founding editor of Elle.
From 1999 to 2009 Shah was editor for the Indian Express. She has also written for Mumbai's Imprint Magazine. Stephen H. Hess noted that journalists like Shah objected to Americentrism in publishing and aspired to writing about a wider range of topics, with an aim to reach larger audiences. In relation to the expected articles from freelance journalists in Asia, Shah noted that Americans found popular stories about burning brides or stampeding elephants.
Fellowships
In 2008 she held a fellowship with the New India Foundation, working on her book about the Indian city of Ahmedabad. Continuing with research on the city, in 2009 she was Fulbright-Nehru doctoral and professional research fellow. From January to April 2018 she was a writing fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study. In 2019, she was listed as resident fellow at Nantes Institute for Advanced Study Foundation, continuing her work on a project titled "A personal journey through history", in which she traces the history of her great grandfather Mohanlal who moved to Natal at the turn of the twentieth century. She has previously received fellowships from the Homi Bhabha Fellowship Council, and the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University.
Works
Hype, Hypocrisy, and Television in Urban India
Shah's book Hype, Hypocrisy, and Television in Urban India was published in 1997. According to the book, five television sets were sold every minute in India in 1988, with a large choice of TV brands. The impact she found, was that a new generation of women were shunning old patriarchal systems, and aspiring to becoming independent and making their own decisions. In her assessment of journalism she found that prominent journalists in the Indian media pushed for greater secularism. Her research for the book drew her to the attention of television broadcast technology by Indian space researcher Vikram Sarabhai and his city of birth Ahmedabad.
Vikram Sarabhai: A Life
She subsequently authored a biography of Vikram Sarabhai, titled Vikram Sarabhai: A Life, published in 2007. In it she wrote that he "dreamed of using space technology for applications in agriculture, forestry, oceanography, geology, mineral prospecting and cartography, with a strict focus on peaceful ends". She included relationship difficulties with his wife, Mrinalini Sarabhai. Space historian Asif Azam Siddiqi called the work a "thoughtful examination of his life". In Robert S. Anderson's Nucleus and Nation: Scientists, International Networks, and Power in India, a footnote credits the biography for being one of the best about an Indian scientist.
Ahmedabad: A City in the World
Her book Ahmedabad: A City in the World was published in 2015, and gives an account of how the city has developed. Shah details Ahmedabad's Muslim ghettos, including the Bombay Hotel. She follows Miraj, a Muslim who lost his home in the Gulbarg Society massacre. Shah writes that "all signs of life [at Gulbarg].. have been stamped out". The book is described as well written in Thomas Blom Hansen's Saffron Republic: Hindu Nationalism and State Power in India. In 2016, Ahmedabad was shortlisted for the Raymond-Crossword Book Award. In 2017 SAGE awarded Shah their Tejeshwar Singh Memorial Award.