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Mukherjee was born in 1950 in New Delhi, India. Her parents,Vidya Dhar Mahajan and Savitri Shori Mahajan, had been renowned teachers of history inLahore, from where they emigrated to New Delhi following thePartition of India in 1947.[1][2] Her sister,Sucheta Mahajan, is a professor of Indian history at JNU,[3] and her brother is Ajay Mahajan.[2] Mukherjee is married to the historian Aditya Mukherjee. They have a daughter, Madhavi.[2]
In 1972, while working on her doctoral thesis, Mukherjee was hired by the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU, as a faculty member,[5] from where she retired as a professor of history. She was a chairperson of the Centre as well. In 2005, she was appointed thedirector of theNehru Memorial Museum and Library,New Delhi.
She investigated agrarian history in thePunjab.[6] She argued that despite extensive irrigation works, colonialisation caused agricultural involution, with the number of workers per unit area rising and production dropping.[7] She also analysed peasant movements in the erstwhile princely states of the Punjab across the pre- and post-1947 periods.[8] Her critical analysis of a Marxian orientation of peasant consciousness has been highlighted.[9]
A common thread running through Mukherjee's work has been a criticism of theSubaltern mode of historical inquiry,[10] which informs her analysis of peasant movements as well as her other major contribution: modern Indian history. This is encapsulated by the two books co-written withBipan Chandra et al:India's Struggle for Independence andIndia after independence: 1947-2000. In the former book, the authors sought to "demolish the influence of the Cambridge andSubaltern 'schools' reflected in the writing on colonialism and nationalism in India".[11]
After Mukherjee was appointed the director of theNehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) two letters, written between February 2008 and June 2009 and signed by various academics, includingRamchandra Guha andSumit Sarkar were sent to the NMML's executive council complaining of alleged deterioration in scholarly standards of the centre.[4][12][13]
Supporting Mukherjee, another set of academics, includingIrfan Habib andMadhu Kishwar, wrote to the Prime Minister of India protesting her treatment. Mukherjee herself pointed out that under her tenure, the NMML had completed a ten-volume publication of the selected works ofJayaprakash Narayan, besides initiating a digitisation project.[4][14][15]
The executive council disregarded the petition and extended Mukherjee's tenure for another two years.[4]
Following the end of her appointment, a search for her replacement ended up in a court case with accusations of irregularities. The Delhi High Court struck down the appointment of Mukherjee's successor on the grounds that the process was faulty and against norms.[16]
Mukherjee, Mridula (1973). "Premchand and the Agrarian Classes".Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Chandigarh.
Mukherjee, Mridula (1979). "Peasant Movement in Patiala State, 1937-48".Studies in History.I (2):215–283.
Mukherjee, Mridula (28 June 1980). "Some Aspects of Agrarian Structure of Punjab, 1925-47".Economic and Political Weekly.XV (26):A46 –A58.
Mukherjee, Mridula (1985). "Commercialisation and Agrarian Change in Pre-Independence Punjab". In Raj, K.N. (ed.).Essays on the Commercialisation of Indian Agriculture. Oxford University Press.
Mukherjee, Mridula (1995). "The Bardoli Peasants Struggle, 1928". In Dayal, Ravi (ed.).We Fought Together for Freedom. Oxford University Press.
Mukherjee, Mridula (2002). "Indian Historiography: Ideological and Political Challenges". In Raghavan, Hema V. (ed.).Contending Ideologies: A Quest for New Moorings. Gargi.
^SinghaRoy, Debal (2006). "Review of "Peasants in India's non-violent revolution: Practice and theory (Sage series in Modern Indian History - V) by Mridula Mukherjee"".Sociological Bulletin.55 (3): 490.JSTOR23620768.
