Mridula Mukherjee

Mridula Mukherjee (née Mahajan) is an Indian historian known for her work on the role of peasants in the Indian independence movement.

Mridula Mukherjee
Mukherjee on Foundation Day of National Movement Front at JNU
Born1950
New Delhi, India
Alma materDelhi University (B.A.)
Jawaharlal Nehru University (M.A., Ph.D.)
Spouse(s)Aditya Mukherjee

Early life and education

Mukherjee was born in 1950 in New Delhi, India. Her parents, Vidya Dhar Mahajan and Savitri Shori Mahajan, had been renowned teachers of history in Lahore, from where they emigrated to New Delhi following the Partition of India in 1947.[1][2] Her sister, Sucheta Mahajan, is a professor of Indian history at JNU,[3] and her brother is Ajay Mahajan.[2] Mukherjee is married to the historian Aditya Mukherjee. They have a daughter, Madhavi.[2]

Mukherjee graduated from Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi. She joined Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as a post-graduate student in 1971, from where she obtained a PhD degree.[4] Her doctoral thesis advisor was Bipan Chandra.[5]

Career

In 1972, while working on her doctoral thesis, Mukherjee was hired by the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU, as a faculty member,[5] from where she retired as a professor of history. She was a chairperson of the Centre as well. In 2005, she was appointed as the director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.

Research

She investigated agrarian history in the Punjab.[6] She argued that despite extensive irrigation works, colonialisation caused agricultural involution, with the number of workers per unit area rising and production dropping.[7] She also analysed peasant movements in the erstwhile princely states of the Punjab across the pre- and post-1947 periods.[8] Her critical analysis of a Marxian orientation of peasant consciousness has been highlighted.[9]

A common thread running through Mukherjee's work has been a criticism of the Subaltern mode of historical inquiry,[10] which informs her analysis of peasant movements as well as her other major contribution: modern Indian history. This is encapsulated by the two books co-written with Bipan Chandra et al: India's Struggle for Independence and India after independence: 1947-2000. In the former book, the authors sought to "demolish the influence of the Cambridge and Subaltern 'schools' reflected in the writing on colonialism and nationalism in India".[11]

Ideology

After Mukherjee was appointed as the director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) two letters, written between February 2008 and June 2009 and signed by various academics, including Ramchandra Guha and Sumit Sarkar were sent to the NMML's executive council complaining of alleged deterioration in scholarly standards of the centre.[4][12][13]

Supporting Mukherjee, another set of academics, including Irfan Habib and Madhu Kishwar, wrote to the Prime Minister of India protesting her treatment. Mukherjee herself pointed out that under her tenure, the NMML had completed a ten-volume publication of the selected works of Jayaprakash Narayan, besides initiating a digitisation project.[4][14][15]

The executive council disregarded the petition and extended Mukherjee's tenure for another two years.[4]

Following the end of her appointment, a search for her replacement ended up in a court case with accusations of irregularities. The Delhi High Court struck down the appointment of Mukherjee's successor on the grounds that the process was faulty and against norms.[16]

Selected publications

Books
  • Chandra, Bipan; Mukherjee, Mridula (14 October 2000). India's Struggle for Independence. Penguin. ISBN 978-81-8475-183-3.
  • Mukherjee, Mridula (8 September 2004). Peasants in India's Non-Violent Revolution: Practice and Theory. SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-81-321-0289-2.
  • Mukherjee, Mridula (23 November 2005). Colonizing Agriculture: The Myth of Punjab Exceptionalism. SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-0-7619-3404-2.
  • Chandra, Bipan; Mukherjee, Aditya; Mukherjee, Mridula (2008). India Since Independence. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-310409-4.
  • Mukherjee, Aditya; Mukherjee, Mridula; Mahajan, Sucheta (5 August 2008). RSS, School Texts and the Murder of Mahatma Gandhi: The Hindu Communal Project. SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-81-321-0047-8.

Articles
  • Mukherjee, Mridula (1973). "Premchand and the Agrarian Classes". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Chandigarh.
  • Mukherjee, Mridula (1979). "Peasant Movement in Patiala State, 1937-48". Studies in History. I (2): 215–283.
  • Mukherjee, Mridula (28 June 1980). "Some Aspects of Agrarian Structure of Punjab, 1925-47". Economic and Political Weekly. XV (26): A46–A58.
  • Mukherjee, Mridula (1985). "Commercialisation and Agrarian Change in Pre-Independence Punjab". In Raj, K.N. (ed.). Essays on the Commercialisation of Indian Agriculture. Oxford University Press.
  • Mukherjee, Mridula (1995). "The Bardoli Peasants Struggle, 1928". In Dayal, Ravi (ed.). We Fought Together for Freedom. Oxford University Press.
  • Mukherjee, Mridula (2002). "Indian Historiography: Ideological and Political Challenges". In Raghavan, Hema V. (ed.). Contending Ideologies: A Quest for New Moorings. Gargi.

References
  1. Khan, Zaman (5 April 2015). "India and Pakistan have a shared history". The News on Sunday. Archived from the original on 9 July 2015. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  2. Mukherjee, Mridula. Peasants in India's Non-Violent Revolution: Practice and Theory (PDF). pp. 12–13.
  3. Mukul, Akshaya (29 December 2010). "Nehru library head on Cong panel, flouts rules". The Times of India. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  4. Sarkar, Bishakha De (23 August 2009). "'I call them the 'Secret Seven' — because the first letter was anonymous'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  5. Meiling, Bhoomika (July 2009). "In conversation with ... Prof. Mridula Mukherjee". JNU News. 4.
  6. Banga, Indu; Grewal, J. S. (2009). "The Study of Regional History". In Ray, Bharati (ed.). Different Types of History. Pearson Education India. p. 216. ISBN 978-81-317-1818-6.
  7. Bosma, Ulbe (7 October 2013). The Sugar Plantation in India and Indonesia: Industrial Production, 1770-2010. Cambridge University Press. p. 253. ISBN 978-1-107-03969-8.
  8. Ramusack, Barbara N. (19 December 2003). The Indian Princes and their States. Cambridge University Press. p. 206. ISBN 978-1-139-44908-3.
  9. SinghaRoy, Debal (2006). "Review of "Peasants in India's non-violent revolution: Practice and theory (Sage series in Modern Indian History - V) by Mridula Mukherjee"". Sociological Bulletin. 55 (3): 490. JSTOR 23620768.
  10. Ruud, Arild E. (1999). "The Indian Hierarchy: Culture, Ideology and Consciousness in Bengali Village Politics" (PDF). Modern Asian Studies. 33 (3): 689–732. doi:10.1017/s0026749x9900342x.
  11. Israel, Milton (Summer 1991). "Review: India's Struggle for Independence 1857-1947". Pacific Affairs. 64 (2): 272. doi:10.2307/2759990. JSTOR 2759990.
  12. Jayaram, Rahul (1 August 2009). "'My Reputation Can Take Mudslinging'". Open Magazine. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  13. Advani, Rukun; Guha, Ramachandra; Kesavan, Mukul; Lahiri, Nayanjot (27 June 2009). "Saving the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library". The Economic Times.
  14. Kishwar, Madhu; Sinha, Shantha; Dev, Arjun; Singh, Madan Gopal (27 June 2009). "Popularising the values of the Freedom Struggle". The Economic Times. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  15. Tripathi, Shailaja (3 June 2011). "The past clicks on in Delhi". The Hindu.
  16. Mukhopadhyay, Nilanjan (25 September 2011). "Another twist to the Nehru Memorial spat". Asian Correspondent. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
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