Irfan Habib

Irfan Habib
Irfan Habib – at his residence in Aligarh
Citizenship	Indian
Fields	History
Alma mater	Aligarh Muslim University Oxford University
Doctoral advisor	C.C. Davies
Notable awards	Watumull Prize (1982) Padma Bhushan (2005)

Irfan Habib (born 1931) is an Indian historian of ancient and medieval India, following the approach of Marxist historiography. He is well known for his strong stance against Hindu and Islamic fundamentalism. He has authored a number of books, including Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556–1707.

Early life and education

File:Irfan habib.jpg

Irfan Habib – 2007

Habib is the son of Mohammad Habib, an historian and Sohaila Habib (née Tyabji). His paternal grandfather was Mohammad Naseem, a wealthy barrister, and nationalist, who funded the Lucknow Session of the Indian National Congress in 1916. His maternal grandfather was Abbas Tyabji, a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi, who became the Chief Justice of the High Court of Baroda. His wife Sayera Habib (née Siddiqui) taught as Professor of Economics at Aligarh Muslim University. His second son Faiz Habib is Cartographic Assistant in Archaeological Section of Center of Advanced Study.

Academic

After he returned from Oxford he joined AMU as a member of the faculty. He was Professor of History at Aligarh from 1969–91. He is presently appointed as Professor Emeritus at the Department of History of the AMU. He delivered the Radhakrishnan Lecture at Oxford in 1991. He is an Elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Royal Historical Society since 1997.

Habib has worked on the historical geography of Ancient India, the history of Indian technology, medieval administrative and economic history, colonialism and its impact on India, and historiography.

Amiya Kumar Bagchi describes Habib as "one of the two most prominent Marxist historians of India today and at the same time, one of the greatest living historians of India between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries."

Positions

He was Coordinator/Chairman of the Centre for Advanced Studies, AMU from 1975–77 and 1984–94. He was Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research during 1986–90. He was the general secretary, Sectional President, and then the General President of the Indian History Congress (1981).

Philosophical and political views

Habib identifies himself as a Marxist and uses Marxist historiography in his work.

Habib has also written books about Vedas and Vedic age, he considers Vedas to be a good historical source, which describes the oral transmission in a priestly culture, that valued faithfulness. He further lays out the reasons that the texts were orally transmitted for hundreds of years, then they were finally written down.

Habib had a sustained commitment to secularism. He led the historians at the Indian History Congress of 1998 who moved a resolution against the "saffronisation" of history. He has said that the BJP government at the Centre which was in power from 1998–2004, especially the MHRD Minister himself, were responsible for inventing facts and dates to suit their interpretation of Indian history. To counter Irfan Habib, Murli Manohar Joshi released a book which rebuts the history of what the former minister calls '‘Habib & Co'’.

Honours

• Among the first six Jawaharlal Nehru Fellows, 1968.
• Watumull Prize of American Historical Association, 1982. (Jointly with Tapan Raychaudhuri)
• Padma Bhushan, 2005.
• Ibn Sina Memorial Lecture, 2009 (Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences).

Selected publications

Books Authored

• The Agrarian System of Mughal India 1556–1707. First published in 1963 by Asia Publishing House. Second, extensively revised, edition published in 1999 by Oxford University Press.
• An Atlas of the Mughal Empire: Political and Economic Maps With Detailed Notes, Bibliography, and Index. Oxford University Press, 1982
• Essays in Indian History – Towards a Marxist Perception. Tulika Books, 1995.
• The Economic History of Medieval India: A Survey. Tulika Books, 2001.
• Medieval India: The Study of a Civilization. National Book Trust, 2008.
• People's History of India – Part 1: Prehistory. Aligarh Historians Society and Tulika Books, 2001.
• People’s History of India Part 2 : The Indus Civilization. Aligarh Historians Society and Tulika Books, 2002.
• A People's History of India Vol. 3 : The Vedic Age. (Co-author Vijay Kumar Thakur) Aligarh Historians Society and Tulika Books, 2003.
• A People's History of India – Vol 4 : Mauryan India. (Co-author Vivekanand Jha) Aligarh Historians Society and Tulika Books, 2004.
• A People's History of India – Vol 28 : Indian Economy, 1858–1914. Aligarh Historians Society and Tulika Books, 2006.

Books Edited

• The Cambridge Economic History of India – Volume I: 1200–1750 (co-editor Tapan Raychaudhari)
• UNESCO History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol 5 : Development in contrast: from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. (Co-editors Chahryar Adle and K M Baikapov)
• UNESCO History of Humanity, Vol 4: From the seventh to the sixteenth century. (With various co-editors).
• UNESCO History of Humanity, Vol 5: From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. (With various co-editors).
• The Growth of Civilizations in India And Iran
• Sikh History from Persian Sources
• Akbar and His India
• India – Studies in the History of an Idea
• State & Diplomacy under Tipu Sultan
• Confronting Colonialism
• Medieval India – 1
• A World to Win – Essays on the Communist Manifesto (co-editors Aijaz Ahmed and Prakash Karat)

External links

• "Delhi Historians Group's Publication "Communalization of Education: The History Textbooks Controversy", A report in 2002, New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
• Selected publications of Irfan Habib
• The Nation That Is India – an article by Irfan Habib, The Little Magazine, 2003.
• Review of The Making of History: Essays Presented to Irfan Habib
• 2001 Interview of Irfan Habib on Rediff
• Historian: Prof Irfan Habib outlookindia.com. Magazine | 23 April 2007.