Siddharth Mohan Nair | The News Minute | August 30, 2014 | 6.56 pm ISTWell-known historian and academic Bipan Chandra died today in his sleep at the age of 86, in Gurgaon.The historian, who specialized in the economic and political history of modern India, died around 6 am on Saturday at his home in Gurgaon. He had been unwell these last few months. He was considered as India’s foremost scholars and an authority on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was a life-long coloumnist and an author of numerous books on modern Indian history including The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism (his earliest one), Communalism: A Primer, The Indian Left: A critical appraisal, The Epic Struggle, Ideology and Politics in Modern India and Freedom Struggle. He had also co-authored India’s Struggle for Independence and India since Independence, books considered as the Bible on the subject for competitive examinations, especially that of the civil services. Born in 1928 in Kangra valley of Himachal Pradesh, he was educated at the Forman Christian College in Lahore, Stanford University, USA and Delhi University, where he completed his PhD. He had worked as a Reader at the Hindu College, New Delhi and then joined as a Professor of History in the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi soon after the university was founded in the 1970s. Reactions to his deathMany people expressed condolences on hearing the news of his death. Twitteratti were no exception.During long career has a historian, Bipin Chandra did not shy away from taking political positions. His refusal to accept Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as a role model might have brought him in the bad books of the RSS and the BJP. In 2003 when Parliamentarians decided to place Savarkar’s photograph in the Central Hall of the Parliament, Chandra reacted strongly. ‘Its very sight is vulgar,’ he had said in an interview to Rediff.com. He argued that personalities whose photographs are placed in the Central Hall ‘are supposed to be role models for citizens… Young people should not be told to emulate him as their role models.’ Chandra appreciated Bhagat Singh’s decision to give up individual terrorism and yet not advocate it to his followers or seek clemency from the British. But, comparing this to Savarkar’s breaking down in the gaol and his ‘begging for clemency from the British government’ and also assuring to the British that if released ‘he would tell his comrades that the path he was following was wrong,’ Chandra argued that it was improper and thus his life was not worth emulating.He strongly believed in educating the masses through writing. He had said that in today’s India, ‘unfortunately, we are being guided by chauvinist type of ideas.’ He expressed pain during his Rediff interview over the fact that no one could criticize ‘any major Bengali leader, you can't say a word against, say, Subhas Chandra Bose. You can't criticize any Akali leader, you can't criticise any major Marathi leader in Maharashtra.’ As a solution he urged the political parties, intellectuals and the media to make people come out of regional chauvinism. In the same interview he opined that the BJP leaders were ‘using him (Savarkar) as an icon’ because ‘it lacks intellectuals of any standing.’ Bipan Chandra’s studies and views on M K Gandhi too were controversial, though not as much as it was on Savarkar. Despite being a historian with leftist leanings, he did not criticize the bourgeois leadership of the Congress or that of Gandhi. Rather he regarded it as the product of time. He attempted to prescribe as theories those techniques that were adopted by Gandhi. According to him the Indian masses were passive and it was because of this that the British could rule us with stability. He appreciated Gandhi’s attempts to mobilize the masses. His description of the Gandhian strategy of Struggle-Truce-Struggle gained wide credence. It is because of his strong stand against the leadership of Savarkar and a totally opposite, appreciative view of Gandhi’s leadership that he got embroiled into controversies. However, having strong viewpoints and expressing them in the form of writings and lectures are the prerogatives of every individual. Historians and students alike will mourn the death of this great academician.