Veteran historian of medieval India and noted educational administrator Satish Chandra passed away on Friday. He was 95.
He will be cremated at the Lodhi Road crematorium on Saturday, after which a prayer meeting will be held at Chinmaya Mission.
Prof. Chandra was the author of the NCERT’s medieval India textbook that was in circulation from some time in the 1970s till the early 2000s and was considered the most comprehensive textbook of the era, loaded with information.
His two-volume book Medieval India was a well-received reference book on history that generations of students have studied.
His strength was his accessible, comprehensive writing.
His information-rich work on medieval India was known to uphold India's composite culture and showed the medieval state as broadly “secular” in orientation.
He was Chairman of the University Grants Commission from 1976 to 1981, and Vice-Chairman of the body from 1973 to 1976.
His students recall him as an affable human being. “He would tell me sources are valuable. When you find a button, make a waistcoat out of it,” recalls Professor Yogesh Sharma of JNU, who was his student in the 1970s. “He delivered a strong lecture at St Stephen’s College when I was a student there and that motivated me to take medieval history as my specialisation.”
