Noted Indian historian Ranajit Guha, passed away at his residence in Vienna on Friday, April 28, 2023, aged 99. According to a Times of India report, his funeral service and last rites will be conducted in Vienna, where he had settled after his retirement.
Guha was born on May 23, 1923, in Siddhakatti, present-day Bangladesh but moved to Calcutta in 1934. He completed schooling at Mitra Institution, graduated from Presidency University, Calcutta, and obtained a postgraduate degree in history from Calcutta University.
He was one of the early pioneers of the Subaltern Studies group, a methodology of South Asian Studies focused on post-colonial and post-imperial societies, studying them from the perspective of the underclasses. In the 1940s, Guha represented the group in the World Federation of Democratic Youth, London.
Guga began teaching in 1953 after returning to India but was suspended after his political affiliations clashed with the communist ideologies prevalent in the state. He migrated to the UK in 1959 and started with a reader's job at the University of Sussex. In 1988, he retired from Australian National University after serving several renowned institutions.
During his career, Guha authored several books, including A Rule of Property for Bengal (1963); Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (1983) and Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (1997).
