Meenakshi Jain#Others

{{Infobox person

| name = Meenakshi Jain

| image = Meenakshi Jain.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = Meenakshi Jain in 2025

| birth_date =

| birth_place = Delhi, India

| death_date =

| death_place =

| other_names =

| known_for = Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing Colonial Discourse

| occupation = Historian, Writer, Political scientist

| alma_mater = University of Delhi (PhD)

| father = Girilal Jain

| relatives = Sunil Jain (brother)
Sandhya Jain (sister)

| awards = Padma Shri (2020)

}}

Meenakshi Jain is an Indian political scientist and historian who served as an associate professor of history at Gargi College, Delhi. In 2014, she was nominated as a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research by the Government of India. In 2020, she was conferred with the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award, for her work in the field of literature and education.{{cite news|author=The Hindu Net Desk|date=26 January 2020|title=Full list of 2020 Padma awardees|language=en-IN|work=The Hindu|url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/full-list-of-2020-padma-awardees/article30656841.ece}}

Jain wrote Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing Colonial Discourse on the practice of Sati in colonial India and had also authored a school history textbook, Medieval India, for NCERT, which replaced a previous textbook co-authored by Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra et al.{{cite news|url=https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/being-proud-of-indias-hindu-past-is-great-but-worry-about-the-present-too/1800185/|title=Being proud of India's Hindu past is great, but worry about the present too|website=The Financial Express}}

Early life and education

Meenakshi Jain is the daughter of journalist Girilal Jain, a former editor of The Times of India.Khushwant Singh, [http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/book-review-of-the-hindu-phenomenon-by-girilal-jain/1/293926.html Biased view] (Book review of The Hindu Phenomenon), India Today, 31 August 1994. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Delhi.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WAESBQAAQBAJ|title=Caste: Its 20Th Century Avatar|last=Srinivas|first=M. N.|date=2000-10-14|publisher=Penguin UK|isbn=9789351187837|pages=313|language=en}} Her thesis on the social base and relations between caste and politics was published in 1991.

Career

Jain is an associate professor of history at Gargi College, affiliated to the University of Delhi.{{Cite web|url=http://ichr.ac.in/Council_new.pdf|title=Members of the Council|website=INDIAN COUNCIL OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH|access-date=6 November 2019|archive-date=6 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191106120853/http://ichr.ac.in/Council_new.pdf|url-status=dead}} In December 2014, she was nominated as a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research by the Indian government.{{Cite web |url=http://ichr.ac.in/newcouncilMembers.pdf |title=Membership of the Indian Council of Historical Research |access-date=21 March 2015 |archive-date=3 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303200819/http://ichr.ac.in/newcouncilMembers.pdf |url-status=dead }}

Reception

= Medieval India (textbook) =

Philosopher Martha Nussbaum noted Jain to be an amateur historian, who despite being trained as a sociologist, was inducted as a historian in service of a political mission.{{Cite book|title=The Clash Within : Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future.|last=Nussbaum|first=Martha Craven|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2007|isbn=9780674030596|oclc=1006798430}} Her Medieval India rendered the time-span through a monoscopic clash-of-civilizations narrative between the forces of good (Hindus) and evil (Muslims); the tensions and internal conflicts between these seemingly homogeneous groups were done away with. Nonetheless, Nussbaum found her work to be a small "oasis of intelligence", subtlety and literacy, when contrasted with other publications of the new NCERT series, published under the aegis of the Hindu Nationalist government; Professor Pralay Kanungo of Jawaharlal Nehru University reflected similar sentiments.

Similarly, sociologist Nandini Sundar found Medieval India to have portrayed the exactions of the Sultanate rulers and the Mughals as anti-Hindu acts; besides, all of their contributions to the social, cultural and political were ignored.{{Cite journal|last=Sundar|first=Nandini|date=2004|title=Teaching to Hate: RSS' Pedagogical Programme|journal=Economic and Political Weekly|volume=39|issue=16|pages=1605–1612|issn=0012-9976|jstor=4414900|doi=10.1057/9781403980137_9}} She saw this as part of a broader pattern of state-induced historical negationism to suit the need of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. John Stratton Hawley of Columbia University found the book to misrepresent the gensis of the Bhakti movement by presenting it as a response to Shankaracharya's monism than to the egalitarian message of Islam.{{Cite book|url=https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/457858|title=A storm of songs. India and the idea of the Bhakti Movement.|last=Hawley|first=John Stratton|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2015|isbn=9780674187467|pages=38–40|chapter=The Bhakti Movement and Its Discontents|doi=10.4159/9780674425262|jstor=j.ctt1c84d6f|oclc=917361614|chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/view/books/9780674425262/9780674425262-004/9780674425262-004.xml}}

= Rama and Ayodhya =

Pralay Kanungo found Jain's Rama and Ayodhya to be a subtle and sophisticated work that managed to stand apart from the earlier ahistorical propaganda by Hindutva-leaning historians.{{Cite web|url=https://thebookreviewindia.org/alternative-narratives/|title=Alternative Narratives|website=The Book Review|language=en-US|access-date=2019-05-11}} Nonetheless, while by cherry-picking from random sources, she had managed to produce a useful compilation, it lacked in coherence and authenticity.

Award

President Kovind presents Padma Shri to Dr Meenakshi Jain for Literature and Education.

Works

=Books=

Congress Party, 1967-77: Role of Caste in Indian Politics (Vikas, 1991), {{ISBN|0706953193}}.
Medieval India: A Textbook for Class XI (NCERT, 2002), {{ISBN|8174501711}}.
Rajah-Moonje Pact: Documents On A Forgotten Chapter Of Indian History (with Devendra Svarupa, Low Price Publishers, 2007), {{ISBN|8184540787}}.
Parallel Pathways: Essays on Hindu-Muslim Relations, 1707-1857 (Konark Publishers, 2010), {{ISBN|9788122007831}}.
The India They Saw (co-edited with Sandhya Jain, 4 Volumes, Prabhat Prakashan), {{ISBN|8184301065}}, {{ISBN|8184301073}}, {{ISBN|8184301081}}, {{ISBN|818430109X}}.
Rama and Ayodhya (Aryan Books International, 2013), {{ISBN|8173054517}}.
Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing Colonial Discourse (Aryan Books International, 2016), {{ISBN|8173055521}}
The Battle for Rama: Case of the Temple at Ayodhya (Aryan Books International, 2017), {{ISBN|8173055793}}.
"Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples: Episodes from Indian History" (Aryan Books International, 2019), {{ISBN|8173056196}}.

=Selected articles=

"Congress 1967: Strategies of Mobilisation in D. A. Low" in The Indian National Congress Centenary Hindsights, 1988.
"Backward Castes and Social Change in U. P. and Bihar" in Srinivas, Caste: Its 20th Century Avatar (2000).
A review of Romila Thapar's Somanatha: Many Voices of a History over The Pioneer (India).{{cite news|url=http://hindureview.com/2004/04/20/review-romila-thapar%C2%92s-%C2%93somanatha-many-voices-history/|title=Review of Romila Thapar's "Somanatha, The Many Voices of a History"|author=Meenakshi Jain|date=21 March 2004|newspaper=The Pioneer|access-date=2014-12-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141218044553/http://hindureview.com/2004/04/20/review-romila-thapar%C2%92s-%C2%93somanatha-many-voices-history/|archive-date=18 December 2014|url-status=dead}}