Sumit Sarkar

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Sumit Sarkar was until recently Professor of History at Delhi University, India, where he began teaching in 1976. He is a prominent Indian social historian. In "Writing Social History" he sought to combine an empirical study of themes in late-colonial Indian history with an intervention in current debates about the extent and nature of Western colonial domination. His most recent work is called the "Limits of Nationalism".

[edit] Communalism and History Writing

As Professor Sarkar states: “The political context in which the historian of India finds himself today is dominated by the advance of the Hindu Right and globalized forms of capitalism....In this scenario, how may a thinking historian who retains an unfashionable commitment to socialist-feminist values, alongside a democratic political vision formulated within Indian conditions of skewed social development, practice the craft of history?”

He is married to fellow historian, Tanika Sarkar and their son Aditya Sarkar is a research student working on the history of Indian labour.