Veteran historian of medieval India and noted educational administrator Satish Chandra passed away at his 95 years of age.
He was the author of the NCERT’s medieval India textbook that was in circulation from some time in the 1970s till the early 2000s and was considered the most comprehensive textbook of the era, loaded with information.
His information-rich work on medieval India was known to uphold India's composite culture and showed the medieval state as broadly “secular” in orientation.
He was Chairman of the University Grants Commission from 1976 to 1981, and Vice-Chairman of the body from 1973 to 1976.
Chandra was Professor of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi. He earlier taught at Allahabad University, Aligarh Muslim University, Delhi University, and Rajasthan University and was the Smuts' Visiting Professor at Cambridge in 1971.
Chandra was the secretary and president of the Indian History Congress in 1973.
Along with S. Gopal, Bipan Chandra, and Romila Thapar, he also founded the Centre for Historical Studies at the School of Social Sciences in JNU.