The remarkable Dharma Kumar

Sanjay Subramanyam called her controversial, Ramachandra Guha described her unforgettable. Both were speaking about their teacher Dharma Kumar (March 1928-2001) who is one of the best known economic historian from India. Kumar had an interesting career trajectory. She studied Economics at Elphinstone College and at University of Cambridge, which was followed by an employment at Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

After her second stint at Cambridge where she gained a doctorate she joined the Delhi School of Economics. Dharma Kumar's thesis was published as a book titled Land and Caste in South India which made some sharp observations about caste and class. Her first book laid the ground for what became a lifelong academic clash with the Marxist historiography.

The pages of the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) journal are witness to a rich and ferocious debate between Dharma Kumar and those she criticised. The participants include the who's who of history in general, and economic history in particular. Those interested must go through the EPW archives for the year 1994. In one essay in the July 1994 issue of EPW Dharma Kumar wrote: "The left secularists' version of Indian history is not only seriously flawed, it is also bad politics as it alienates many Hindus who may otherwise support a secular policy. Obliterating the vast differences between Islam and Hinduism by a stress on syncretism and 'composite culture', as they do, drains Indian history of much of its meaning."      

What came out in the open in the 1990s was actually set in motion perhaps from the publication of her first book itself. Dharma Kumar's different approach came out to the fore, and in some ways got more traction, with the publication of the Cambridge Economic History of India Vol 2 in 1982. Some of the essays in the volume were criticised as second-rate, which could have been better written by historians who were omitted. Assisting Kumar, was Meghnad Desai who was at LSE at that time. In last few years whenever I have met Lord Meghnad Desai I have always asked him about the Cambridge Volume and Dharma Kumar.    

Her scholarship was exemplary and even those on the other side of the fence acknowledge her generosity. Shireen Moosvi remembered how Dharma Kumar encouraged her to write for IESHR. The IESHR which she edited after the departure of founding editor Tapan Raychaudhary to Oxford remains a remarkable research journal. A volume was dedicated to Dharma Kumar after her passing away, but it is (Book) festschrift she richly deserves. 

Those interested in the debate can revisit this (https://www.jstor.org/stable/4401462) by Dharma Kumar and other essays in the same and subsequent issues of EPW.