Sir Jadunath Sarkar (10 December 1870 – 19 May 1958) was a prominent

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

n historian and a specialist on the Mughal dynasty.

Academic career

Sarkar was born in Karachmaria village in

Natore Natore district is a district of Rajshahi Division located in northern Bangladesh. It borders the metropolitan city of Rajshahi, and used to be part of Rajshahi district. History Natore was the District Headquarters of Rajshahi from 1769 to 182 ...

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

to Rajkumar Sarkar, the local

Zamindar A zamindar (Hindustani language, Hindustani: Devanagari: , ; Persian language, Persian: , ) in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semiautonomous Raja, ruler of a province. The term itself came into use during the reign of Mughal Em ...

on 10 December 1870. In 1891, he graduated in English from

Presidency College, Calcutta Presidency University, Kolkata (formerly known as Presidency College, Kolkata) is a second major public state aided research university located in College Street, Kolkata. Considered as one of best colleges when Presidency College was affili ...

. In 1892, he topped the Master of Arts examination, in English at

Calcutta University The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate State university (India), state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered ...

and in 1897, he received the Premchand-Roychand Scholarship. In 1893, he was inducted as a faculty of English literature at Ripon College,

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...

(later renamed

Surendranath College Surendranath College is an undergraduate college affiliated to the University of Calcutta, in Kolkata, India. It was founded in 1884 by the nationalist leader and scholar Surendranath Banerjee. The Women's section of the college was founded ...

). In 1898, he was appointed at

after getting selected in the Provincial Education Services. In between, from 1917 to 1919, he taught modern Indian history in

Benaras Hindu University Banaras Hindu University (BHU) IAST: kāśī hindū viśvavidyālaya IPA: /kaːʃiː hɪnd̪uː ʋɪʃwəʋid̪jaːləj/), is a collegiate, central, and research university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, and founded in 1916 ...

and from 1919 to 1923, both English and history, at

Ravenshaw College Ravenshaw University, formerly known as Ravenshaw college, is a co-educational state university situated in Cuttack, Odisha on the eastern coast of India. Founded as Ravenshaw College in 1868, the institution became a university in 2006. The u ...

Cuttack Cuttack (, or officially Kataka ) in Odia is the former capital and the second largest city in the Indian state of Odisha. It is the headquarters of the Cuttack district. The name of the city is an anglicised form of ''Kataka'' which literally ...

. In 1923, he became an honorary member of the

Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...

of London. In August 1926, he was appointed as the

Vice Chancellor A chancellor is a leader of a college or university, usually either the executive or ceremonial head of the university or of a university campus within a university system. In most Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations, the chancellor ...

. In 1928, he joined as Sir W. Meyer Lecturer in

Madras University The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigious universities in India, incorporated by an a ...

Historiography

Reception

Sarkar's works faded out of public memory, with the increasing advent of

Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

and postcolonial schools of historiography. Academically, Jos J. L. Gommans compares Sarkar's work with those of the Aligarh historians, noting that while the historians from the Aligarh worked mainly on the

mansabdar The Mansabdar was a military unit within the administrative system of the Mughal Empire introduced by Akbar. The word ''mansab'' is of Arabic origin meaning rank or position. The system determined the rank and status of a government official an ...

i system and

gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). T ...

technology in the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

, Sarkar concentrated on

military tactics Military tactics encompasses the art of organizing and employing fighting forces on or near the battlefield. They involve the application of four battlefield functions which are closely related – kinetic or firepower, Mobility (military), mobil ...

and

siege A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characteriz ...

Honors

Sarkar was honored by Britain with a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire CIE and knighted in the

1929 Birthday Honours The King's Birthday Honours 1929 were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by members of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of The King. The ...

list. He was invested with his knighthood at Simla by the acting Viceroy, Lord Goschen, on 22 August 1929.

Legacy

The

Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC) is a social science and humanities research and teaching institute in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. History Established in 1973 jointly by the Indian Council of Social Science Research and ...

, an autonomous research center, has been established in his house, which was donated to the state government by Sarkar's wife. CSSC also houses the Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre, a museum-cum-archive of primary sources.

List of works

Published works by Sarkar include: * ''Economics of British India'' (1900) * ''The India of Aurangzib'' (1901) * ''Anecdotes of Aurangzib'' (1912) * ''

History of Aurangzib ''History of Aurangzib'' is a book in five volumes by Indian historian Jadunath Sarkar about the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb. The book is considered to be the magnum opus of Jadunath Sarkar and was written between 1912 and 1924. It has been called the ...

'' (in 5 volumes), (1912–24) * ''Chaitanya's pilgrimages and teachings, from his contemporary Bengali biography, the Chaitanya-charit-amrita: Madhya-lila'' (translation from the Bengali original by

Krishnadasa Kaviraja Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī ( bn, কৃষ্ণদাস কবিরাজ, Kṛṣṇôdas Kôviraj; born 1496; date of death unknown) was the author of the Caitanyacaritāmṛta, a biography on the life of the mystic and saint ...

, 1913) * ''Shivaji and his Times'' (1919) * ''Studies in Mughal India'' (1919) * ''Mughal Administration'' (1920) * ''Nadir Shah in India'' (1922) * ''Later Mughals'' by William Irvine (in 2 volumes), (edited by Jadunath Sarkar, 1922) * ''India through the ages'' (1928) * ''A Short History of Aurangzib'' (1930) * ''The Fall of the Mughal Empire'' (in 4 volumes), (1932–38) * ''Studies in Aurangzib's reign'' (1933) * ''The House of Shivaji'' (1940) * ''The History of Bengal'' (in 2 volumes), (1943–1948) * ''Maāsir-i-ʻĀlamgiri: a history of the emperor Aurangzib-ʻl̀amgir'' (translation from the Persian original by Muḥammad Sāqī Mustaʻidd Khān, 1947) * ''Military History of India'' (1960) * ''A History of Jaipur, c. 1503–1938'' (1984) * ''A History Of Dasnami Naga Sanyasis''

References

Sources

External links

*
Sir Sarkar at Britannica Encyclopedia
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sarkar, Jadunath Presidency University, Kolkata alumni Bengali historians Bengali zamindars Presidency University, Kolkata faculty Historians of South Asia 19th-century Indian historians People from Natore District Rajshahi College alumni University of Calcutta alumni University of Calcutta faculty Vice Chancellors of the University of Calcutta 1870 births 1958 deaths Knights Bachelor Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire Indian Knights Bachelor 20th-century Indian historians Scholars from Kolkata