Barun De

Barun De (Bengali: বরুন েদ) (born October 30, 1932) is an Indian historian whose main area of research is Modern India. He has specialised in the social and economic history of India in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Bengal Renaissance, and British constitutional history.

Background

He was born in a Brahmo family of Calcutta. His parents were Basanta Kumar De, esq., the Chief of Traffics of the Bengal Nagpur Railway and an army major and Pramila Dé (née Gupta). As a hostel student in the Brahmo Girls School, Calcutta, and then in Bethune College, Calcutta, his mother was involved with the Bengal Volunteers Movement led by Lila Ray and others, which under Subhas Chandra Bose's guidance formed a procession in military uniforms, that Bose led on horseback ahead of the procession of the Congress President, Motilal Nehru to the pandal of the Calcutta Congress Session in Park Circus in 1928. This march has been seen as one of the origins of Bose's later formation of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment in the Indian National Army.

His paternal grandfather was Brajendranath De, esq. ICS, a long serving Magistrate and Collector of Hooghly and Commissioner (offtg) of Burdwan Division in Bengal. Some of his paternal uncles were Sir Sarat Kumar Ghosh, ICS, a former Chief Justice of Rajasthan, Jaipur and Jammu and Kashmir, Gurusaday Dutt, esq., ICS, a former Secretary, Local Self Government and Public Health, Government of Bengal, and the founder of the Bratachari movement of Bengal, Col. Jyotish Chandra De, IMS, an eminent physician who became the 2nd Indian Principal of Calcutta Medical College and Dr. Pares Chandra Datta, an eminent doctor, who was a former Director, Health Services, Government of West Bengal. His maternal granduncle was Amrita Lal Gupta, a well known Brahmo preacher and writer from Dacca. Also, on his mother's side, he is a nephew of the eminent Bengali poet, Jibanananda Das.

Career

Academic

He studied at St. Xavier's Collegiate School, Calcutta and Presidency College, Calcutta. In college he was a student of Professor Susobhan Chandra Sarkar. After his graduation he went to St Catherine's Society, Oxford to complete a second B.A. in History and later obtained an M.A. from the University of Oxford. From 1957 to 1958 he taught as Lecturer in history at the University of Calcutta. He completed his D.Phil. in Indian history at Nuffield College, Oxford in 1961. While he was completing his thesis he was a Tutor at Nuffield College. His Oxford thesis, completed under the supervision of Dr. C.C.Davies, was entitled Henry Dundas and the Government of India, (1773–1801): A Study in Constitutional Ideas. He was Reader in History at the University of Burdwan from 1961 to 1963. From 1965 to 1969 and then again from 1971 to 1973 he was Senior Professor of Social and Economic History of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM Calcutta). In the intervening period between 1969 and 1971 he was a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla. From 1973 to 1993 he was Professor of History at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC). He was the UGC National Lecturer in 1981. From 1997 to 1998 he was the Maulana Azad Fellow at the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Calcutta. From 1998 to 2001 he was the India Chair at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. From 2010 to 2012 he will be the Ministry of Culture, Government of India's Tagore National Fellow at the Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta.

He has taught as Visiting Professor and Visiting Associate Professor and has held Directeurships at universities and institutes at Duke, Paris, Milan, Sydney and Tokyo.

He has delivered a number of chaired lectures. Some of them are: Devraj Chanana Memorial Lecture (Delhi) (1974), UGC National Lectures (Burdwan, North Bengal University, Siliguri, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) (1979), D.D. Kosambi Memorial Lectures (Goa University) (1993), Khuda Buksh Memorial Lecture (Khuda Buksh Memorial Library, Patna) (2007), Heras Memorial Lecture (St. Xavier's College, Mumbai) (2008), The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Lecture (National Museum of Scotland) (2009) and the Foundation Day Lecture of Presidency College, Calcutta (2010).

Administrative

As a student in Presidency College he was a Debate Secretary and Tennis Secretary of the Students' Union. In Oxford he became a member of the Socialist Club and was also elected as the Treasurer, Secretary and then the President of the Oxford India Majlis.

At the IIM he was the first Indian Post-Graduate Programme Director, and contributed to the setting up of the management diploma course there. From 1973 to 1983 he was the First-Director of the CSSSC. He was the General Secretary (from 1973 to 1975) and the General President (1988) of the Indian History Congress, Dharwar Session. He was the Honorary Director, Eastern Regional Centre, Calcutta from 1973 to 1983. From 1979 to 1983 he was State Editor of the West Bengal District Gazetteers. From 1993 to 1997 he was the First-Director of the MAKAIAS. He was also Chairman of the West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta and the Gurusaday Dutt Folk Art Society, Calcutta. He is the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Directorate of Archeology, Government of West Bengal. He was Chairman of the West Bengal Heritage Commission (WBHC) from 2008 to 2011, which was a political appointment.

He is the Vice Chairman of the Centre for Archeology and Training, Eastern India, and is also a Vice President of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta. He was also the General Secretary of the Governing Body of Patha Bhavan, Kolkata.

He has held memberships of numerous other organisations, such as the Karma Samity of Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi (from 1972 to 1978 and then again from 2004 to 2007) and several committees of the Indian Council for Social Science Research, New Delhi. He was a member of the West Bengal Commission for the Planning of Higher Education. He was also a member of the Executive Council of the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum and A.N.Sinha Institute of Social Sciences, Patna. He was also a member of ICSSR Area Studies and International Collaboration Agreements Committees in the 1970s. He was a member of the Indo-Soviet Joint Commission on the Social Sciences in the mid-1980s. From 1993 to 1997 he was a member of the General Council of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi. After his retirement he became a member of the Executive Council of the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta. He is now a member of the Society of the MAKAIAS, the Board of Trustees of the Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta and the governing body of the Indian Museum, Calcutta. He was also a member of the Heritage Buildings' Conservation Committee and the Road Renaming Committee of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation.

Ideology

He is considered to be a Marxist and secular historian. Soon after seizing power through the general election of 1977, the Morarji Desai government instituted a high level enquiry committee under the chairmanship of the then Education Minister, Dr. Pratap Chander Chandra to look in to the affairs of the 27 ICSSR institutes set up by the previous regime between 1972-77. The CSSSC was identified as one of the main think tanks to be enquired in to. The Union Education Minister himself paid the institute a visit in that year, but much to his amazement and discontent found out that De, who was then its Founder-Director, did not have an airconditioner even in his office room. Naturally, the Minister had to drop all charges of mismanagement against the CSSSC. Once again after the BJP returned to power twenty years later in 1998, the then MHRD minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, visited the newly set up Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, and questioned its Founder-Director, De's style of functioning, advising him to shift the academic focus of the institute from Central Asian studies to South East Asian studies, where the minister claimed there has been a history of Hindu imperialism. The Azad Institute was set up, under the chairmanship of the then Governor of West Bengal, Prof. Nurul Hasan, with the objective of dealing with the politics and culture of Central Asian countries. Enquiry committees were also set up to look in to the personal and official matters of not only the Director, but all other fellows of the Institute. De left for Tashkent for three years in 1998, where the Indian Ambassador, Sh. Bhaskar Mitter, advised him not to either teach or research on Emperor Babur, since the Mughal Emperor in Mitter's view was an invader. Mitter also warned De of grave official consequences if the latter defied the orders of the Ambassador. In 2004, soon after the BJP was defeated in the general election, De was appointed by the MHRD, Government of India, to review history textbooks published previously by the NCERT under the BJP sarkar. The committee De was member of recommended that not only should all textbooks published under the ministership of Joshi be removed from the curriculum, since they were sub-standard, textbooks that are more than five years old should also be reviewed, to avoid charges of the curriculum becoming out-dated. His moderate views were challanged by both the left and the right. The left, in particular, wanted all old, 'pre-historic' textbooks written at the beginning of the 1970s be brought back in to the curriculum in the twenty-first century. In 2011, soon after the Trinamool Congress, which had earlier been a constituent of the communal NDA alliance at the Centre, came to power in West Bengal, the state government under the Chief Ministership of Ms. Mamata Banerjee, reconstituted all state level commissions. De was replaced as Chairman of the West Bengal Heritage Commission, a post in which he had remained for more than three years, i.e. from 2008-2011. De was one of the earliest members of the Commission, and was the Chairman of the second Heritage Committee that had recommended the establishment of the Commission in the middle of the 1990s. Being a committed Marxist historian since the 1950s, De has openly opposed the Trinamool Congress when it has been both outside and inside the government.

Awards and honours

• Gopimohan Deb Scholarship, Presidency College, Calcutta 1953–54
• Curzon Memorial Essay Prize, Oxford, 1957
• Beit Senior Research Scholarship, Nuffield College, Oxford, 1958–61
• Doctor of Letters, Honoris Causa by North Bengal University, 2000
• Banga Samman Award, 2008–09

Publications

Books

• Secularism at Bay: Uzbekistan at the Turn of the Century (New Delhi, 2006)
• (ed.) State, Development and Political Culture: Bangladesh and India, (New Delhi, 1997) (Co-edited with Ranabir Samaddar)
• (ed.) Mukti Sangrame Banglar Chatro-Chamaj (Students of Bengal in the Struggle of Liberation) (in Bengali), (Calcutta: Paschim Banga Itihas Samsad, 1992)
• (ed.) West Bengal District Gazetteers, 24 Parganas, (Calcutta, 1983)
• (ed.) West Bengal District Gazetteers, Darjeeling, (Calcutta, 198?)
• (ed.) Perspectives in Social Sciences, 1: Historical Dimensions (New Delhi, 1977)
• (ed.) Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, (Calcutta: Jadavpur Session, 1974)
• (ed.) Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, (Aligarh: Aligarh Session, 1975)
• (et al. eds.) Essays in Honour of Professor Sushobhan Chandra Sarkar (New Delhi, 1975)
• Freedom Struggle (New Delhi, 1972), (Co-authored with Bipan Chandra and Amalesh Tripathi)

External links

• Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
• Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Calcutta

Political offices
Preceded by Pratap Chandra Chunder	Chairman, West Bengal Heritage Commission, Calcutta 2008–2011	Succeeded by N/A
Academic offices
Preceded by New creation	Director, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Calcutta, Calcutta 1993–1997	Succeeded by Mahavir Singh
Government offices
Preceded by Partha Chaudhuri, I.A.S.	State Editor, West Bengal District Gazetteers, Calcutta 1979–1983	Succeeded by Kumud Biswas, I.A.S.
Academic offices
Preceded by New creation	Director, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta 1973–1983	Succeeded by Surajit Sinha
Political offices
Preceded by Asgar Musaji	President, Oxford India Majlis Hilary Term, 1956	Succeeded by Kamal Hossain