Ranajit guha biography of william

The publication of the first volume of Subaltern Studies [1] in 1982 under the editorship of Ranajit Guha has been viewed as a major ‘turn’ in the modern Indian historiography.

The publication of Guha’s The Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency [2] the next year added theoretical gravity to this thus making him a formidable historian of ‘lower orders’ in colonial India.

The fact that Subaltern Studies series with a new volume every year came to be earnestly looked forward to by scholars across disciplines was a testimony to the collective’s popularity and success.

The passing away of Ranajit Guha on April 28, 2023 in Vienna at the age of 99 marks the end of a remarkable intellectual journey that was known for scripting a significant theoretical-methodological and discursive shift in modern Indian historical scholarship with radical political implication