M.J. Akbar is a distinguished author whose many books have focused on the fractured history of the Indian subcontinent, with emphasis on social schisms and religious tensions fomented by colonial policy. His first book India: The Siege Within Challenges to a Nation's Unity broke fresh ground in the analysis of forces that were disrupting the emergence of a modern nation state. His internationally acclaimed books include Nehru: The Making of India; Kashmir: Behind the Vale; The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity; Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan; and Blood Brothers, a novel; Gandhi's Hinduism: The Struggle Against Jinnah's Islam; Doolally Sahib and the Black Zemindar; and Gandhi: A Life in Three Campaigns. In addition there have been four collections of his columns, reportage and essays.

He has had a parallel writing career as editor and reporter. After a spell in The Illustrated Weekly of India [then edited by the remarkable Khushwant Singh] he launched, in 1976, as editor, India's first mass-market weekly political news magazine, Sunday for the Ananda Bazar Group of Publications. In 1982 he brought out The Telegraph which broke the mould of daily newspapers and engineered radical change in print media. He has also been editorial director of India Today and The Sunday Guardian.