To understand Irfan Habib the academician, let us start with his magnum opus, The Agrarian System of Mughal India 1556–1707 (1963). The range of his scholarship gets displayed by the conception of the book itself. It is a comprehensive and…
Geeta Kapur, Speech Acts, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2025, 284 pages, Rs 995. That art is not originary to Geeta Kapur’s most recent book can be seen in its title: Speech Acts. Kapur remains the most formidable practitioner of a…
This issue of Social Scientist features the texts of two memorial lectures held recently at New Delhi: the P. Sundarayya memorial lecture delivered by Utsa Patnaik, and the Safdar Hashmi memorial lecture delivered by A. Mangai.
I will start with a personal anecdote. I met Com. Sundarayya, for the first and only time, nearly half a century ago in 1976 at his initiative, because he wished to discuss the question of how to ascertain differences of…
Words fail me in expressing my deep sense of honour, solidarity, awe and excitement for this opportunity to deliver the 31st Safdar Hashmi Memorial Lecture. Hashmi re-invented himself in the short span of his life in the most creative ways…
The concept of ‘Hindustan’ in the Mughal period was a cultural category, but one which was also imbued with territoriality. Often in scholarly writings, Hindustan is studied within an exclusive cultural frame of reference, but I hope to argue in…
Professor Dhaneshwar Mandal (D. Mandal) was born in Jamalpur, District Munger, Bihar, in 1933. He passed his high school (then matriculation) from Patna University in 1950 and chose to further his education from Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi. He passed…
We go to colleges and universities to learn. The best institutions and the best teachers create the environment for students to learn much more than what is listed in their syllabi or their curricula. The best teachers give their students…
Himani Bannerji, Decolonization and Humanism: The Postcolonial Vision of Rabindranath Tagore, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2024, x+234 pages, Rs 995It is perhaps evidence of the living influence of Tagore on our lives and our culture that studies on his work…
This issue of Social Scientist includes three articles addressing different themes in History. In the first, Seema Bawa questions notions regarding the appearance and proliferation of the goddess cult and worship ritual in India, especially in early historic Bihar (fifth…