Adieu to Historian Prof. R S Sharma
One of India’s foremost historians and public intellectuals, Prof. R S Sharma, passed away on 20 August at the age of 92.
His work as an authority on ancient India was always deeply engaged with contemporary social realities. He established and defended the relationship between technological development and social changes in ancient India. A Marxist historian to the core, Prof. Sharma’s path-breaking thesis on Indian feudalism ruffled many feathers. He interacted with the peasant leader Swami Sahajanand Saraswati.
Ancient India became a bitterly disputed site of political contention with the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign. Debunking myth and defending scholarship, facts and secular values, he along with other leading historians authored a report that authoritatively established that there was no temple beneath the mosque. He moved the Indian History Congress (IHC) to adopt resolutions against the Emergency; and later, demanding protection for the Babri Masjid.
He did pioneering research on the condition of the oppressed castes in ancient India. He also battled censorship for his refusal to mould historical facts to suit conservative political opinion. After the Emergency, the Janata Party Government unsuccessfully tried to ban his Std XI-XII textbooks on ancient India because they referred to beef-eating in ancient India. Later the NDA-BJP Government withdrew this seminal textbook during a saffronisation drive.
CPI(ML) bids farewell to this original scholar who took academics from the ivory tower to the study of the lives of peasants and oppressed castes, an unrepentant Marxist, a defender of academic independence, and a bold fighter for secularism and democracy.
