Meenakshi Jain

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Meenakshi Jain (मीनाक्षी जैन) is an Indian political scientist and historian sympathetic to Hindu revivalism and Hindu nationalism.[1] She is the author of the controversial history textbook Medieval India published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) during the NDA government to replace the prior text by Romila Thapar.[2] Her recent book Rama and Ayodhya sets out the Hindu revivalist perspective on the Ayodhya dispute.[3]

Life and career

Meenakshi Jain
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Delhi
Thesis titleCongress Party, 1967-77: Role of Caste in Indian Politics
Academic work
Notable worksParallel Pathways
Rama and Ayodhya

Meenakshi Jain is the daughter of journalist Girilal Jain, who would retire as editor of The Times of India.

Jain received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Delhi. Her thesis on the social base and relations between caste and politics was published in 1991.[4][5] She would also work as a fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Currently, Jain is an associate professor of history at Gargi College, affiliated to the University of Delhi.[6]

In December 2014, Jain was nominated to receive membership in the Indian Council of Historical Research by the Narendra Modi government.[7]

Works

Books
Selected Articles

Jain also wrote a review of Romila Thapar's Somanatha: Many Voices of a History.[8]

Bias on wikipedia

Reception

Chander Pal Singh finds Jain's Parallel Pathways to be "path-breaking work" that questions the standard narrative of "amicable relations" between Hindus and Muslims during the medieval times broken only by the divide-and-rule policies of the British colonial government. Jain argues that there were fundamental differences between the two communities and that such differences were aggravated during the period of Mughal decline which saw the resurgence of Hindu and Sikh powers and the rise of Muslim orthodoxy. Jain notes that a great majority of the nobility in the Mughal court consisted of immigrants, and that such an elite would consciously transform Hindavi into Urdu by substituting a large number of Sanskrit-origin words with Persian and Arabic words in order to maintain a separate identity. Jain holds Muslim orthodoxy responsible for inviting the invasions of Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali for explicit purpose of preserving Islam. She also questions the thesis that the India's First War of Independence was a joint Hindu-Muslim project and notes that Islamic institutions issued over 200,000 fatwas in the post-Revolt period to "outlaw" customary practices shared between both Hindus and Muslims.[9]

M. V. Kamath, in the Free Press Journal, describes Jain's Rama and Ayodhya as briefly examining the antiquity of Rama's story and its spread through the Indian subcontinent, and then devoting the rest of the book to the Ayodhya dispute. Jain's enormous research makes Rama "come alive," tracing stories about him from the 4th century BCE to the present. She has provided "fair" criticism to Irfan Habib and Romila Thapar, reporting the presentation of their case in considerable detail.[10] Professor Pralay Kanungo, of Jawaharlal Nehru University, calls the book a "serious exercise" that aspires to make a quiet impact. It succeeds in trying to create a coherent and authentic historical narrative that aims to demolish the dominant narrative of the Left historians of India.[11] Koenraad Elst has called the book a "definitive Ayodhya chronicle," forming required reading for any one talking about the Ayodhya dispute. He finds the chapter on Hindu testimonies of Muslim iconoclasm "highly original," which also details the measures taken by Hindu society to prevent or remedy instances of such iconoclasm. Another chapter gives an "exhaustive enumeration" of all the testimonies of the tradition that the Babri Masjid replaced a Hindu temple, including the statements made in Allahabad High Court. Also detailed are the testimonies of the pro-Masjid historians in the court and outside, which were eventually disregarded by the Allahabad High Court for their lack of competence.[12]

References

  1. "History, their story" [archive].
  2. Nussbaum 2008, p. 232-233.
  3. Rohit Srivastava (9 June 2013). "Busting secular myths: Review of Meenakshi Jain's Rama and Ayodhya" [archive]. The Pioneer. Retrieved 2014-12-15.
  4. Srinivas 2000, Notes on Contributors.
  5. Nussbaum 2008, p. 236.
  6. Jain 2013, back cover.
  7. Membership of the Indian Council of Historical Research [archive]
  8. Meenakshi Jain (21 March 2004). "Review of Romila Thapar's "Somanatha, The Many Voices of a History"" [archive]. The Pioneer. Retrieved 2014-12-15.
  9. Singh, Chander Pal (2013). "Book Review - Parallel Pathways: Essays on Hindu Muslim Relations (1707-1857)" [archive] (PDF). Journal of Indian Research. 1 (4): 149–151.
  10. M. V. Kamath (2 June 2013). "Rama & Ayodhya" [archive]. Free Press Journal.
  11. Alternative Narratives [archive], Pralay Kanungo, The Book Review Literary Trust, 5 May 2014.
  12. Koenraad Elst (24 September 2014). "The Definitive Ayodhya Chronicle" [archive]. India Facts.

Sources

Further reading

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