Eminent historian K.N. Panikkar dies at 90

• Eminent historian and academic K.N. Panikkar passed away in Thiruvananthapuram on March 9. He was 90.

• Panikkar was known for his influential writings on modern Indian history, communalism and colonial society. 

• He was widely recognised for his Marxist interpretation in history writing and for advocating secular and scientific approaches in the sector. 

• Panikkar was born on April 26, 1936 in Guruvayoor in Kerala.

• He pursued higher education at Victoria College and later at Rajasthan University, eventually building a distinguished career as a historian, teacher and writer.

• Panikkar was widely associated with the Marxist school of historiography and contributed significantly to the study of social and cultural movements in modern India. 

• Panikkar taught in the Department of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

• He later served as head of the department, Dean of the School of Social Sciences, and chairman of the Archives of Contemporary History. 

• Panikkar also served as Vice-Chancellor of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit in Kalady in Kerala.

• He was the founding chairman of the Kerala Council for Historical Research and headed the institution from 2001 to 2017.

• He also served as the president of the Indian History Congress in 2008.

• Among his notable books are ‘Against Lord and State: Religion and Peasant Uprisings in Malabar, Culture and Consciousness in Malabar’, ‘Culture, Ideology and Hegemony – Intellectuals and Social Consciousness in Colonial India’, and ‘Before the Night Falls: Forebodings of Fascism in India’. He also wrote ‘The Concerned Indian’s Guide to Communalism’.