Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (1888-1980)

Coming from a Baidya family, Majumdar was born in Khandarpara, Gopalganj, Bengal Presidency, British India (now in Bangladesh) on 4 December 1888, to Haladhara Majumdar and Bidhumukhi. He studied in various schools in Dhaka and Kolkata), and finally in 1905, he passed his Entrance Examination from Ravenshaw College, Cuttack. In 1907, he passed F.A. with a first-class scholarship from Surendranath College and joined Presidency College, Calcutta. Graduating with a B.A.(Honours) and M.A. (History) in 1909 and 1911, respectively, he won the Premchand Roychand scholarship for his research work in 1913, which led to his thesis: Andhra-Kushana Age.^[1]

Majumdar started his teaching career as a lecturer at Government Teachers' Training College, Dhaka. Since 1914, he spent seven years as a professor of history at the University of Calcutta. He got his doctorate for his thesis "Corporate Life in Ancient India".^[8] In 1921 he became a professor of History at the newly established University of Dacca. He also served, until he became its Vice Chancellor, as the head of the Department of History and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts. Between 1924 and 1936 he was Provost of Jagannath Hall. Then he became the Vice Chancellor of the University for five years from 1937 to 1942. From 1950, he was Principal of the College of Indology, Benares Hindu University. He was elected the General President of the Indian History Congress and also became the vice president of the ‘International Commission for a History of the Scientific and Cultural Development of Mankind’ (1950–1969) set up by the UNESCO for the history of mankind.^[9]

Majumdar started his research on ancient India. After extensive travels to Southeast Asia and research, he wrote detailed histories of Champa (1927), Suvarnadvipa (1938) and Kambuja Desa (1944). On the initiative of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, he took up the mantle of editing a multi-volume tome on Indian history. Starting in 1951, he toiled for twenty-six long years to describe the history of the Indian people from the Vedic Period until the Independence of India in eleven volumes. In 1955, Majumdar established the College of Indology of Nagpur University and joined as Principal. In 1958–59, he taught Indian history in the University of Chicago and University of Pennsylvania. He was also the president of the Asiatic Society (1966–68) and the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad (1968–69), and also the Sheriff of Calcutta (1967–68).^{[citation needed]}

Majumdar has been noted for promoting Hindu nationalist views and for his communal interpretations of history. According to him the origins of India's freedom struggle lie in the English-educated Indian middle-class and the freedom struggle started with the Banga Bhanga movement in 1905. His views on the freedom struggle are found in his book History of the Freedom Movement in India.