Irfan Habib is an India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n Marxist historian

Marxist historiography

Marxist or historical materialist historiography is a school of historiography influenced by Marxism. The chief tenets of Marxist historiography are the centrality of social class and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes....

, a former Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research

Indian Council of Historical Research

The Indian Council of Historical Research is a Society . The ICHR is registered under Societies registration Act 1860 with the Department of Industries of Delhi Government, Delhi.Role...

 and a Padma Bhushan

Padma Bhushan

The Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri. It is awarded by the Government of India.-History:...

 awardee. He is a Professor Emeritus at Aligarh Muslim University

Aligarh Muslim University

Aligarh Muslim University ,is a residential academic university, established in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan as Mohammedan Angelo-Oriental College and later granted the status of Central University by an Act of the Indian Parliament in 1920...

. He has served in the Indian History Congress

Indian History Congress

Indian History Congress is the largest professional and academic body of Indian historians with over 10,000 members. It was established in 1935. The name of any new applicant for membership needs to be proposed and seconded by existing Ordinary or Life Members....

 for many years. Irfan Habib and R.S. Sharma

Ram Sharan Sharma

Ram Sharan Sharma was an eminent historian of Ancient and early Medieval India. He had taught at Patna University, Delhi University and the University of Toronto and was a senior fellow at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; University Grants Commission National Fellow...

 have been historians of international repute even before the Indian Council of Historical Research

Indian Council of Historical Research

The Indian Council of Historical Research is a Society . The ICHR is registered under Societies registration Act 1860 with the Department of Industries of Delhi Government, Delhi.Role...

 was set up.

Biography

Habib is the son of Mohammad Habib, the eminent historian and independence activist. His paternal grandfather was Mohammad Naseem, a wealthy barrister, and nationalist, who funded the Lucknow Session of the Indian National Congress in 1916. His mother Sohaila Habib (née Tyabji) was the daughter of Abbas Tyabji

Abbas Tyabji

Abbas Tyabji was an Indian freedom fighter from Gujarat, who once served as the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court. Mahatma Gandhi appointed Tyabji, at age seventy-six, to replace him as leader of the Salt Satyagraha in May, 1930 after Gandhi’s arrest. Tyabji was arrested soon afterward and...

, a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...

, who became the Chief Justice of the High Court of Baroda. His wife Sayera Habib (née Siddiqui) taught as Professor of Economics at Aligarh Muslim University. His second son Faiz Habib is Cartographic Assistant in Archaeological Section of Center of Advanced Study.

Education and Work

Irfan Habib studied at the Aligarh Muslim University School and then completed his B.A. and M.A. from Aligarh Muslim University

Aligarh Muslim University

Aligarh Muslim University ,is a residential academic university, established in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan as Mohammedan Angelo-Oriental College and later granted the status of Central University by an Act of the Indian Parliament in 1920...

 (AMU), where he came first class first in history. He was the editor of the student journal of the history department of the university. Later he completed his D.Phil. from New College, Oxford

New College, Oxford

New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...

 under the supervision of Dr. C.C. Davies.

He was Professor of History at Aligarh from 1969–91, as well as Co-ordinator/Chairman of the Centre of Advanced Study in History, AMU, during 1975-77 and 1984-94. Prof.Habib is presently appointed as Professor Emeritus at the Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University.
Habib has worked on the historical geography

Historical geography

Historical geography is the study of the human, physical, fictional, theoretical, and "real" geographies of the past. Historical geography studies a wide variety of issues and topics. A common theme is the study of the geographies of the past and how a place or region changes through time...

 of Ancient India

History of India

The history of India begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from...

, the history of Indian technology

Science and technology in ancient India

The history of science and technology in the Indian subcontinent begins with prehistoric human activity at Mehrgarh, in present-day Pakistan, and continues through the Indus Valley Civilization to early states and empires. The British colonial rule introduced some elements of western education in...

, medieval administrative and economic history

Economic history

Economic history is the study of economies or economic phenomena in the past. Analysis in economic history is undertaken using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and by applying economic theory to historical situations and institutions...

, colonialism

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

 and its impact on India, and historiography

Historiography

Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...

.

Amiya Kumar Bagchi

Amiya Kumar Bagchi

Amiya Kumar Bagchi is a distinguished Indian political economist. His contributions have spanned economic history, the economics of industrialization and de-industrialization, and development studies from an overall Marxist perspective, incorporating insights from other schools of radical...

 describes Habib as "one of the two most prominent Marxist historians of India today and at the same time, one of the greatest living historians of India between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries."

Professor Sumit Sarkar

Sumit Sarkar

-Background:He belongs to one of Bengal's most enlightened and progressive Brahmo families. His father was Professor Susobhan Chandra Sarkar, a Head of Department of History at Presidency College, Calcutta and the founder Head of Department of the Department of History, []...

 says:"Indian Historiography, starting with D.D. Kosambi in the 1950s, is acknowledged the world over - wherever South Asian history is taught or studied - as quite on a par with or even superior to all that is produced abroad. And that is why Irfan Habib or Romila Thapar

Romila Thapar

Romila Thapar is an Indian historian whose principal area of study is ancient India.-Work:After graduating from Panjab University, Thapar earned her doctorate under A. L. Basham at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London in 1958...

 or R.S. Sharma are figures respected even in the most diehard anti-Communist American universities. They cannot be ignored if you are studying South Asian history."

Positions held

He was Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research during 1987-93. He was also the President, Indian History Congress, 1981. In 1991 he was invited to deliver the Radhakrishnan Lecturer at Oxford. He is an Elected Corresponding Fellow, British Royal Historical Society

Royal Historical Society

The Royal Historical Society was founded in 1868. The premier society in the United Kingdom which promotes and defends the scholarly study of the past, it is based at University College London...

 since 1997.

Spat with BJP government

Irfan Habib was among the historians who opposed the rewriting of history by the BJP led NDA government. He criticised the Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi

Murli Manohar Joshi

Murli Manohar Joshi was the Union Human Resources Development minister of India in the NDA government. Joshi is a leading member of the Bharatiya Janata Party...

 for making "absurd statements" regarding the Sanskrit language and accused the Union government of trying to "invent" history . He was among the historians at the Indian History Congress in 1998 when they moved a resolution against the saffronisation of history . To counter Irfan Habib, Murli Manohar Joshi had released a book to rebuts the history of ‘‘Habib & Co’’ .

Philosophical and political views

Habib identifies himself as a Marxist and uses Marxist historiography

Marxist historiography

Marxist or historical materialist historiography is a school of historiography influenced by Marxism. The chief tenets of Marxist historiography are the centrality of social class and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes....

 in his work.

Honours

• Among the first six Jawaharlal Nehru Fellows, 1968.
• Watumull Prize of American Historical Association
  American Historical Association
  The American Historical Association is the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States. Founded in 1884, the association promotes historical studies, the teaching of history, and the preservation of and access to historical materials...
  
  , 1982. (Jointly with Tapan Raychaudhuri)
• Padma Bhushan, 2005.
• Muzaffar Ahmad Memorial Prize, 2006.
• Degree of Doctor of Letters, Honoris Causa, from Banaras Hindu University, 2008.
• Ibn Sina Memorial Lecture, 2009 (Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences
  Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences
  Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences is one of the Indian NGOs, which is registered under the Indian Trusts Act, 1882. Mohammad Hamid Ansari, former vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, formally inaugurated it on April 21, 2001...
  
  ).

Selected publications

Books Authored

• The Agrarian System of Mughal India 1556-1707. First published in 1963 by Asia Publishing House. Second, extensively revised, edition published in 1999 by Oxford University Press.
• An Atlas of the Mughal Empire: Political and Economic Maps With Detailed Notes, Bibliography, and Index. Oxford University Press, 1982
• Essays in Indian History - Towards a Marxist Perception. Tulika Books, 1995.
• The Economic History of Medieval India: A Survey. Tulika Books, 2001.
• Medieval India: The Study of a Civilization. National Book Trust, 2008.
• People's History of India - Part 1: Prehistory. Aligarh Historians Society and Tulika Books, 2001.
• People’s History of India Part 2 : The Indus Civilization. Aligarh Historians Society and Tulika Books, 2002.
• A People's History of India Vol. 3 : The Vedic Age. (Co-author Vijay Kumar Thakur) Aligarh Historians Society and Tulika Books, 2003.
• A People's History of India - Vol 4 : Mauryan India. (Co-author Vivekanand Jha) Aligarh Historians Society and Tulika Books, 2004.
• A People's History of India - Vol 28 : Indian Economy, 1858-1914. Aligarh Historians Society and Tulika Books, 2006.

Books Edited:

• The Cambridge Economic History of India - Volume I: 1200-1750 (co-editor Tapan Raychaudhari)
• UNESCO History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol 5 : Development in contrast: from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. (Co-editors Chahryar Adle and K M Baikapov)
• UNESCO History of Humanity, Vol 4: From the seventh to the sixteenth century. (With various co-editors).
• UNESCO History of Humanity, Vol 5: From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. (With various co-editors).
• The Growth of Civilizations in India And Iran
• Sikh History from Persian Sources
• Akbar and His India
• India - Studies in the History of an Idea
• State & Diplomacy under Tipu Sultan
• Confronting Colonialism
• Medieval India - 1
• A World to Win - Essays on the Communist Manifesto (co-editors Aijaz Ahmed and Prakash Karat)

External links

• "Delhi Historians Group's Publication "Communalization of Education: The History Textbooks Controversy", A report in 2002, New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
• Irfan's family tree
• Selected publications of Irfan Habib
• The Nation That Is India - an article by Irfan Habib, The Little Magazine, 2003.
• Aligarh Historians' Society
• Review of The Making of History: Essays Presented to Irfan Habib
• 2001 Interview of Irfan Habib on Rediff