Sumit Sarkar (born 1939) is one of the foremost historians of modern

India India, officially the Republic of India, 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 by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. He is a Marxist historian. He is the author of ''Swadeshi Movement'' ''in Bengal, 1903-1908'' (1973), ''Modern India'' (1989), and ''Writing Social History'' (1998), among others. He was a founding member of the Subaltern Studies Group as well as one of its most important critics.

Early life, education and career

He was born to Susobhan Sarkar. His maternal uncle was

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis OBE, FNA, FASc, FRS (29 June 1893 – 28 June 1972) was an Indian scientist and statistician. He is best remembered for the Mahalanobis distance, a statistical measure, and for being one of the members of the fi ...

. He completed his BA (Honours) in history at Presidency College, Calcutta and MA and Ph.D. in the same subject at the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

. He taught for many years as a

lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

at the University of Calcutta, and later as a reader at the University of Burdwan. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at

Wolfson College, Oxford Wolfson College () is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Wolfson is an all-graduate college, it prides itself on being one of the most international colleges at Oxford, with part ...

. He was

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of history at the

University of Delhi The Delhi University (DU, ISO 15919, ISO: ), also and officially known as the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate research university, research Central university (India), central university located in Delhi, India. It ...

Awards

He was awarded the Rabindra Puraskar literary award for his book Writing Social History by the

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

government in 2004. He returned the award in 2007 in protest against the expulsion of farmers from their land by the erstwhile state government ran by the CPI(M) led Left Front..

Controversy

He was one of the founding members of the Subaltern 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 by Partha Chatterjee blanketly criticized Enlightenment, the

nation-state A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly or ideally) con ...

and

secularism Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on naturalistic considerations, uninvolved with religion. It is most commonly thought of as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state and may be broadened ...

lined up with indigenist critiques that were at home with the Hindu 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. He contributed a volume to the ''Towards Freedom'' project of the

Indian Council of Historical Research Indian or Indians may refer to: Associated with India * of or related to India ** Indian people ** Indian diaspora ** Languages of India ** Indian English, a dialect of the English language ** Indian cuisine Associated with indigenous peoples o ...

(ICHR), publication of which was blocked in 2000 by the ICHR under the influence of then Indian government administered by the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

as alleged by Sarkar. The publication of the volume was eventually allowed by the Government of India once the Congress party came to power after the general election of 2004.

Publications

* ''Modern Times'' (Ranikhet, 2014) *''Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India, 1946'', (New Delhi, 2007) *''Beyond Nationalist Frames: Post-Modernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, History'', (Delhi, 2002) *''Writing Social History'', (Delhi, 1998) *''Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags: A Critique of the Hindu Right'', (with Tapan Basu, Pradip Datta, Tanika Sarkar and Sambuddha Sen; Orient Longman, 1993). . *''Modern India: 1885-1947'', (Basingstoke, 1989) *''The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903-1908'', (New Delhi, 1973)

References

External links

The Decline of the Subaltern in Subaltern Studies
* . {{DEFAULTSORT:Sarkar, Sumit 1939 births Bengali Hindus Bengali-language writers 20th-century Bengalis Presidency University, Kolkata alumni University of Calcutta alumni Academic staff of the University of Calcutta Academic staff of the University of Burdwan Academic staff of Delhi University Academic staff of Jawaharlal Nehru University Bengali historians Brahmos Fellows of Wolfson College, Oxford Historians of South Asia Historians of colonialism 20th-century Indian historians Living people Indian Marxist historians Indian political writers Writers about Hindu nationalism Indian lecturers 20th-century Indian male writers 20th-century Indian scholars Scholars from West Bengal English-language writers from India People from Kolkata district