Satish Chandra is an India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n historian, whose main area of specialisation is medieval Indian History.

Early life

He is the son of Sir Sita Ram, a zamindar/educator/barrister/politician from Meerut.

Academic

He was a Reader in History at Aligarh Muslim University

Aligarh Muslim University

Aligarh Muslim University ,is a residential academic university, established in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan as Mohammedan Angelo-Oriental College and later granted the status of Central University by an Act of the Indian Parliament in 1920...

, Aligarh before joining the newly established Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Jawaharlal Nehru University, also known as JNU, is located in New Delhi, the capital of India. It is mainly a research oriented postgraduate University with approximately 5,500 students and a faculty strength of around 550.-History:...

, New Delhi as a professor and a co-founder.

He was also the General

General

A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 President

President

A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...

 and General Secretary

General Secretary

The office of general secretary is staffed by the chief officer of:*The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace, a government agency for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace...

 of the Indian History Congress.

Administrative

He was the first Dean

Dean (education)

In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...

 of the School of Social Sciences, JNU

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Jawaharlal Nehru University, also known as JNU, is located in New Delhi, the capital of India. It is mainly a research oriented postgraduate University with approximately 5,500 students and a faculty strength of around 550.-History:...

, New Delhi. He was the Vice Chairman and then Chairman of the University Grants Commission

University Grants Commission (India)

The University Grants Commission of India is a statutory organisation set up by Union government in 1956, for the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of university education. It provides recognition for universities in India, and provides funds for government-recognised...

.

Ideology

He belongs to the nationalist-secular group of Indian historians. As a member of the Indian History Congress, he supports secular historiography of India in the medieval and early modern periods. Communalists opposed historians such as Ram Sharan Sharma

Ram Sharan Sharma

Ram Sharan Sharma was an eminent historian of Ancient and early Medieval India. He had taught at Patna University, Delhi University and the University of Toronto and was a senior fellow at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; University Grants Commission National Fellow...

, Romila Thapar

Romila Thapar

Romila Thapar is an Indian historian whose principal area of study is ancient India.-Work:After graduating from Panjab University, Thapar earned her doctorate under A. L. Basham at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London in 1958...

, Bipan Chandra, Arjun Dev and Chandra whose text books had long been used in schools. More recently in 2004 their textbooks were reintroduced in the national curriculum after a hiatus of six years when the books had been removed for political reasons.

Works

• (ed. and tr.), Balmakandnamah. English and Persian Letters of a King-Maker of the Eighteenth Century, (by Balmakand Mehta and Sayyid Abdullah Khan), (London: Asia Publishing House, 1972)
• Marwar Under Jaswant Singh (1658-1678): Jodhpur Hukumat Ri Bahi, (Meerut: Meenakshi Prakashan, 1976) (co-edited with G.D. Sharma and Raghubir Sinh)
• The Eighteenth Century in India: Its Economy and the Role of the Marathas, the Jats, the Sikhs and the Afghans, (S.G. Deuskar Lecture for the CSSSC), (Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co., 1986)
• (ed.) Essays in Medieval Indian Economic History, (Indian History Congress Golden Jubilee Year Publication Series, v.3) (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1987)
• (ed.) The Indian Ocean: Explorations in History, Commerce and Politics, (New Delhi: Sage, 1987)
• The Indian Ocean and its Islands: Strategic, Scientific and Historical Perspectives, (New Delhi: Sage, 1993) (co-edited with B.Arunachalam)
• Report of the Committee to review the Scheme of the Civil Services Examination, (New Delhi: UPSC, 1989)
• Medieval India: Society, the Jagirdari Crisis, and the Village, (Delhi: Macmillan, 1992)
• Historiography, Religion and State in Medieval India (New Delhi: Har Anand, 1996)
• Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals, (New Delhi: Har Anand Publications, 1997)
• Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707-1740, (New Delhi: OUP, 2003; 4th Edition)
• Mughal Religious Policies, the Rajputs and the Deccan, (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 2003)
• (ed.) Studies in Archaeology and History: (Commemoration Volume of Professor S. Nurul Hasan), (Rampur: Rampur RazaLibrary, 2003)
• Religion, State and Society in Medieval India: Collected Works of Saiyyid Nurul Hasan, (New Delhi: OUP, 2005)
• Essays on Medieval Indian History (New Delhi: OUP, 2005)
• History of Medieval India (800-1700) (2007)
• Social Change and Development in Medieval Indian History, (New Delhi: Har Anand Publications, 2008)
• State, Pluralism and the Indian Historical Tradition, (New Delhi: OUP, 2009)