Rudrangshu Mukherjee

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Rudrangshu Mukherjee is an Indian historian and author who is presently Opinions editor for The Telegraph newspaper, Kolkata.

[edit] Academics

Rudrangshu Mukherjee studied in Presidency College, Kolkata, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Oxford University (St Edmund Hall).[1].

His D.Phil in Modern History at the University of Oxford in 1981 was based on his acclaimed thesis on the revolt of 1857[2], which presented a view of the revolt from the native perspective. He has revisited this theme in his books including Awadh in Revolt 1857-58: A Study of Popular Resistance (Delhi, 1984, repr. 2002), Spectre of Violence: The 1857 Kanpur Massacres (Delhi, 1988), which tries to re-frame the popular colonial image of the massacres, and Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero? by Rudrangshu Mukherjee (Penguin India). The last book reflects on the theme of how hero-formation feeds into irrational nationalist frenzy[3].

[edit] Public Life

Mukherjee has taught history at the University of Calcutta and held visiting appointments at Princeton University, the University of Manchester and the University of California, Santa Cruz. At the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC) headed by Partha Chatterjee , he became involved in several aspects of historigraphy, especially the issues concerning the ascendancy of the North in the production of knowledge[2]. He has edited The Penguin Gandhi Reader (Delhi, 1993) and is the author of the Art of Bengal: A Vision Defined, 1955-75 (Kolkata, 2003), and co-edited Trade and Politics and the Indian Ocean World: Essays in Honour of Ashin Das Gupta (Delhi, 1998).

He has also worked on the history of the leftist movement in India[4]. After the 2007 Nandigram episode where the CPI(M) government of West Bengal attempted to forcibly annex some farm lands for an industrial zone, Rudrangshu was among the more vociferous of the leftist intellectuals in Kolkata who protested the violent policies of the left[5]. though he, and the ABP group, keep shifting their opinion from time to time and tend to more or less favour land acquisition, SEZs and the CPI(M)'s model of development.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Author bio", Silicon India magazine. 
  2. ^ a b Rudrangshu Mukherjee. "Sephis e-magazine: Partha Chatterjee interview", South-south Exchange programme for research on the history of development, vol. 1 no. 1 Sept 2004. Retrieved on 2007-12-17. 
  3. ^ Rudrangshu Mukherjee. "Clio Is Not For Worship:- History is best freed from nation-building", The Telegraph, 2005-09-04. Retrieved on 2007-12-18. 
  4. ^ Rudrangshu Mukherjee. "[A Mandate For Change: A symposium on the 2004 general elections Left Luggage]", Seminar, New Delhi, ed. Raj and Romesh Thapar, July 2004. Retrieved on 2007-12-19. 
  5. ^ Rudranghshu Mukherjee. "Kiss of Death - The CPI(M)'s use of violence in Nandigram isn't surprising", The Telegraph, 2007-01-10. Retrieved on 2007-12-19. (part of a three-article series)