 | This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
Sumit Sarkar | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | University of CalcuttaPresidency College |
Sumit Sarkar (born 1939) is one of the foremost historians of modernIndia. He is a Marxist historian. He is the author ofSwadeshi Movementin Bengal, 1903-1908 (1973),Modern India (1989), andWriting Social History (1998), among others. He was a founding member of theSubaltern Studies Group as well as one of its most important critics.[1]
He was born toSusobhan Sarkar. His maternal uncle wasPrasanta Chandra Mahalanobis.
He completed his BA (Honours) in History atPresidency College, Calcutta and MA and Ph.D. in the same subject at theUniversity of Calcutta.[2] He taught for many years as alecturer at the University of Calcutta, and later as areader at theUniversity of Burdwan. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship atWolfson College, Oxford. He wasprofessor of history at theUniversity of Delhi between 1974 and 2004.[3]
Sarkar's significance in South Asian historiography lies in his role in shaping our understanding of the Swadeshi movement.[4]
He was awarded theRabindra Puraskar literary award for his bookWriting Social History by theWest Bengal government in 2004. He returned the award in 2007 in protest againstthe expulsion of farmers from their land by the erstwhile state government ran by theCPI(M) ledLeft Front (West Bengal).[5]
He was one of the founding members of theSubaltern Studies Collective, but later distanced himself from the project. He noted that arguments made in the later issues of the journal as well as in books byPartha Chatterjee blanketly criticizedEnlightenment, thenation-state andsecularism lined up withindigenist critiques that were at home with theHindu right. In his view this error was traceable to a basic confusion in the early project that posed an absolute separation between the elite and subaltern domains.[6]
He contributed a volume to theTowards Freedom project of theIndian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), publication of which was blocked in 2000 by the ICHR under the influence of then Indian government administered by theBharatiya Janata Party as alleged by Sarkar.[7] The publication of the volume was eventually allowed by the Government of India once the Congress party came to power after thegeneral election of 2004.[8]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
