Social Science Research Council

I could never have imagined writing this, which makes it all the more difficult. Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, Raj to all, fellow of Trinity College and director of the South Asia Centre at Cambridge University, served as a valued and respected member of the SSRC South Asia Regional Advisory Panel from 2000-2005. Raj was one of the most eminent historians of modern India. His superb study of the Indian working classes, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India (Cambridge, 1994), based on extensive study of the Bombay textile mills, became an instant classic. It was followed, a few years later, by Imperial Power and Popular Classes (Cambridge, 1998), which like his first book, is a wide-ranging examination of the struggles of the politically marginalized and economically oppressed. Most recently, Raj was working, among other things, on a new project on the Bombay police: I well remember many conversations about the fascinating corpus of materials he had stumbled upon in the archives.

My friend Raj passed away extremely suddenly, during a conference at Dartmouth last weekend. Appropriately, the conference focused on one of his great passions, and which was how he continued to define himself years after he had left India for Cambridge, namely, the city of Bombay. Raj was a true Mumbaikar—son of Bombay—in other ways as well. Apart from knowing the sprawling city like the back of his hand, and escaping narrowly from a communal riot in 1993, he was an avid cricketer, who played first class-level cricket in both Bombay and England. He was unfailingly generous and kind, with a wonderfully wry sense of humor. Jennifer and Raj came to Washington often, and I cannot imagine that they will never be coming together, again.

Itty Abraham
Former Program Director
SSRC South Asia Program