Bipan Chandra honoured with ‘Itihas Ratna’

Eminent historian Bipan Chandra on 17 December 2013 was awarded Itihas Ratna from Asiatic Society Bihar. The award was given to Bipan Chandra on his 86th birthday. He was honoured by O.P. Jaiswal, the Secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bihar in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Campus, New Delhi.

Bipan Chandra is the fourth historian to behonoured with the Itihas Ratna by the society. The three others, who have been honouredwith the Itihas Ratna are:

• Ram Sharan Sharma, who was awarded on 19 November 2010
• Irfan Habib was awarded on 9 September 2011
• J S Grewal awarded on 9 September 2012

About Bipan Chandra

• The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism, is one of his known and one of the earliest books
• He served the Indian History Congress as its Sectional President and then as the General President in 1985
• He has been a Chairperson of the centre for historical studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi
• In 1993, he became a member of the University Grants Commission
• From 2004-2012, he has served National Book Trust, New Delhi as its Chairperson
• He was at the forefront of the communist struggle in India since independence
• He is an Indian historian and has specialized in economic and political history of modern India
• He was born in 1928 in Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh

Some of his books are:

• India after Independence
• In the Name of Democracy: JP Movement and Emergency
• Essays on Colonialism
• Nationalism and Colonialism in Modern India
• Communalism and the Writing of Indian History
• History of Modern India
• The Epic Struggle
• Essays on Indian Nationalism