Now Reading: Sumit Sarkar, eminent Marxist historian of modern India, dies at 87
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Sumit Sarkar, eminent Marxist historian of modern India, dies at 87
Sumit Sarkar, the Marxist historian and leading scholar of modern Indian history, died at a private hospital in New Delhi on Thursday. He was 87. He taught history at the University of…
The Story in Brief
Sumit Sarkar, the Marxist historian and leading scholar of modern Indian history, died at a private hospital in New Delhi on Thursday. He was 87. He taught history at the University of Delhi for many years and was a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, besides visiting professorships in the US and Europe.
His seminal works include *Swadeshi Movement in Bengal*, *Modern India* and *Writing Social History*. He co-edited two volumes on women and caste with his wife, Tanika Sarkar. Colleagues and former students recalled his kind nature and his ability to spin a full paragraph from a single word in lectures.
The Indian Opinion
Historian Sumit Sarkar will be remembered not just as a Marxist but as one who proved that the framework could accommodate culture and emotion, not just class and economy. The lazy narrative that all Marxist history is rigidly economic or deterministic collapses when confronted with his work on Bengal’s Swadeshi movement or his nuanced writing on caste. His books remain the benchmark for any serious study of modern India. The real test of his legacy is whether younger scholars will continue to read them rather than merely cite them.
Source: thehindu.com
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