Cambridge univ historian Christopher Bayly dead
Srijana Das
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With the death of Cambridge University historian Sir Christopher Alan Bayly, Sir Christopher Alan Bayly, 70, who suffered a huge heart attack in Chicago, the world has lost a top historian who unearthed the roots of Indian nationalism.“Chris was one of the greatest historians of India,“ says Shahid Amin. Bayly's path-breaking research analysed how often overlooked players, from peasants to merchants, moneylenders, mofussil gentry, politicians and spies, contributed to the making of modern India.Themes analysed by Bayly radically reshaped understandings of India's past -and remain deeply relevant today . “Studying Allahabad's intricate local politics, he captured two schools of nationalism -Madan Mo han Malaviya's Hindu kind and Motilal Nehru's Western sort. From analysing sherwanis and other sartorial styles in the Indian imagination to procuring the entire run of a newspaper edited by Malviya for the National Archives, Bayly's contribution to India was immense,“ Amin remarks.
Bayly's work was pioneering in linking local histories to the national -and global. Ramachandra Guha comments, “Chris Bayly was a historian who constantly asked new questions. His work explained important continuities across time for instance, he showed links between Mughal, British and post-colonial styles of intelligencegathering. He showed 18th century India as creative and enterprising, not in apathetic Mughal decline. Forever excited about new sources, he wrote about the first wave of globalization to impact the world.“
Amin says Bayly's sweep broke across cantankerous ideological divides that could narrow historians' vision. “At a time when history is understood to be very `national', Chris Bayly's work was admired across the world. We became friends in 1973,“ Amin recounts. “He wasn't a typical Oxbridge don. He was very open-minded, very excited by things around him, deeply committed to teaching a vast numbers of students who looked up to him.“
Bayly's work was pioneering in linking local histories to the national -and global. Ramachandra Guha comments, “Chris Bayly was a historian who constantly asked new questions. His work explained important continuities across time for instance, he showed links between Mughal, British and post-colonial styles of intelligencegathering. He showed 18th century India as creative and enterprising, not in apathetic Mughal decline. Forever excited about new sources, he wrote about the first wave of globalization to impact the world.“
Amin says Bayly's sweep broke across cantankerous ideological divides that could narrow historians' vision. “At a time when history is understood to be very `national', Chris Bayly's work was admired across the world. We became friends in 1973,“ Amin recounts. “He wasn't a typical Oxbridge don. He was very open-minded, very excited by things around him, deeply committed to teaching a vast numbers of students who looked up to him.“
