Historian Sumit Sarkar passed away on August 13. He was known for writing history "from below" — putting workers, peasants, and ordinary people at the center.
For decades, Indian history was about viceroys, battles, and Congress resolutions. Sarkar broke that. In Modern India, he wrote about mill workers, students, and women. He asked: How did ordinary people experience the Swadeshi movement? What did the 1942 Quit India movement mean in villages?
He criticized both colonial and nationalist narratives. He said the Congress was elite-led, and mass movements often happened despite leaders, not because of them. He also wrote against communalism and the misuse of history for politics, including after Babri Masjid in 1992.
Analytically, Sarkar’s contribution was methodological. He used newspapers, police records, and oral accounts to recover voices left out of official archives. He argued history must be about material conditions, not just ideas.
He was a Marxist, but not a dogmatic one. He engaged with Subaltern Studies, but also critiqued it. His writing was accessible yet rigorous.Why does this matter today? Because history is being used as a political weapon. Sarkar reminded us that history should explain, not justify. It should include the loser, the protester, the farmer.
In an age of "great man" history and social media takes, Sarkar’s work is a call to read deeper. Nations are not built only by leaders in Delhi. They are built by millions in fields, factories, and classrooms whose names we never learn. That was Sarkar’s project. And it remains unfinished.