Obituary: Professor Sumit Sarkar (1939–2026), A historian of Modern India

Professor Sumit Sarkar passed away in Delhi on 13 August 2026, at the age of 87. One of the most influential and respected scholars of modern Indian history, Professor Sarkar died on Thursday evening following a long illness.

Mourned by his students, peers and admirers as a ‘rare human being’, he is survived by his wife, eminent historian Professor Tanika Sarkar. Over more than five decades of dedicated scholarship, he reshaped how the history of colonial rule, anti-colonial nationalism and social reform is researched, taught and understood around the world.

Tributes poured in from historians, writers and academics as news of his death spread on Thursday evening. A tender tribute was posted by Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Kumar Jha, who wrote, “I could not be your student, but I had the privilege of listening to you, meeting you and, above all, reading your work. I still remember your description of Gandhi walking through Noakhali while the nation was celebrating Independence. That image has stayed with me not merely as a moment in history, but as a reminder of what it means to inhabit history with moral courage. And how can one forget your understanding of Gandhi as someone who did not seek to make everyone think alike but created an ‘umbrella’ under which people who did not think alike could struggle together. That idea, like so much of your work, continues to speak to our present.”

Sarkar completed his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in History at Presidency College, Calcutta, and went on to earn both his master’s degree and doctorate in History from the University of Calcutta. He subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford.

He began his teaching career as a lecturer at the University of Calcutta and later served as a reader at the University of Burdwan.

In 1974, he was appointed Professor of History at the University of Delhi, where he taught until 2004 and subsequently served as Professor Emeritus. He married Tanika Sarkar, herself a renowned historian and the daughter of prominent educationists Sukumari and Amal Bhattacharya. Together, they formed one of modern Indian academia’s notable scholarly partnerships.

Sumit Sarkar altered South Asian historiography with his first major monograph, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903–1908, published in 1973. Moving away from elite, top-down narratives, Sarkar used meticulous archival research and down-to-earth descriptions to analyse nationalist mobilisation, student involvement, peasant participation, and internal tensions between moderate and extremist factions.

Ten years later, in 1983, Sarkar published Modern India: 1885–1947, a textbook for advanced students and teachers that gained monumental status. Sarkar organised the narrative into three broad phases—the moderate phase (1885–1905), the Swadeshi and revolutionary phase (1905–1918), and the Gandhian phase (1918–1947)—while integrating profound economic and social critique.

He analysed British colonial exploitation, including the drain of wealth, deindustrialization, and agrarian distress, alongside what he termed the "politics of the people". By documenting peasant rebellions, labour strikes, dalit movements, and gender roles, he demonstrated how mass movements with radical economic agendas continually kept nationalist leaders under pressure and influenced them.

Professor Sarkar was a founding member of the Subaltern Studies collective research project, which sought to bring non-elite history to the forefront. However, he later became one of its most critical voices. Sarkar distanced himself from the group, cautioning against an absolute separation between elite and subaltern domains, and criticising post-modernist trends that blanketly rejected Enlightenment values, secularism, and the nation-state in ways that converged with indigenist and right-wing critiques.

Sarkar turned the shorter essay form into a miniature monograph and textbook. His skeptical-Marxist analytical rigour produced landmark essay collections, including Writing Social History (1998), Beyond Nationalist Frames: Postmodernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, History (2002), Modern Times: India 1880s–1950s (Environment, Economy, Culture) (2014), and Essays of a Lifetime: Reformers, Nationalists, Subalterns (2017). Together with Tanika Sarkar, he co-edited multi-volume readers such as Women and Social Reform in Modern India and Caste in Modern India.

Prof Sarkar stood firmly against communalism during the 1990s. In 1993, he co-authored Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags: A Critique of the Hindu Right, presenting a sharp historical critique of majoritarian politics.

His commitment to historical truth was demonstrated during his editorship for the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) project, Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India, 1946. Publication of his volume was blocked in 2000 by the ICHR under the BJP-led government, before being cleared and published in 2007 under a new administration.

In 2004, the West Bengal government awarded him the Rabindra Puraskar, awarded for his book Writing Social History. In 2007, Sarkar returned the award in protest against the expulsion of farmers from their land in Singur and Nandigram by the CPI(M)-led Left Front state government, reaffirming his independence and moral integrity.

Professor Sumit Sarkar leaves behind an extraordinary legacy that continues to define South Asian history courses, competitive examination syllabi, and academic debates. Generations of historians, teachers, and students owe their understanding of India’s past to his lucid prose, empirical thoroughness, and commitment to social justice.

In his death, the academic world has lost a brilliant mind, a skeptical-Marxist scholar of rare integrity, and a fearless voice for secularism and democracy. His work remains a lasting light for historical inquiry in India and across the world.

Hasnain Naqvi is a former member of the history faculty at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. More of his writing here