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{{short description|Indian historian and filmmaker|bot=PearBOT 5}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2015}}
{{Use Indian English|date=July 2025}}
{{Infobox scholar
|image =Uma chak.jpg
|caption=Chakravarti in 2015
| name = Uma Chakravarti
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| birth_date = 20 August 1941
| birth_place = Delhi, India
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| spouse = Anand Chakravarti
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| workplaces = [[Miranda House]], [[University of Delhi]]
| alma_mater = [[Benaras Hindu University]]
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| major_works = *''Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism''<br>
*''Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai''
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}}
'''Uma Chakravarti''' (born 20 August 1941) is an Indian [[historian]] and [[filmmaker]]. Beginning in the 1980s, Chakravarti wrote extensively on Indian history highlighting issues relating to [[gender]], [[caste]], and [[Social class|class]], publishing seven books over the course of her career. Her body of work mostly focused on the history of [[Buddhism]], and that of [[Ancient India|ancient]] and 19th century India.

Born to a bureaucrat from [[Palghat]], [[Kerala]], Chakravarti went to school in [[Delhi]] and [[Bangalore]]. She completed her master's in history from the [[Benaras Hindu University]] and ventured into teaching. Chakravarti established a career as an educator at the [[Miranda House, University of Delhi]], where she taught from 1966 to 1998. She published her first book{{emdash}}''Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism'' as a part of her doctorate study in 1987. Her subsequent writings, the most successful of which are ''Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai'' (1998) and ''Gendering Caste through a Feminist Lens'' (2002), have been well received by both the audience and fellow academicians.

A leading scholar of [[women's history|women's]] and [[feminist history]] writing in the subcontinent, she has been called the founding mother of the [[Feminism in India|women's movement in India]]. Apart from engaging with feminist issues, she has also worked as a democratic rights activist, participating in several fact-finding committees including the International Tribunal on Justice for Gujarat.<ref name=Leiden>[http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/uma-chakravarti-bio.pdf Dr Uma Chakravarti (bio)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150529052135/http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/uma-chakravarti-bio.pdf |date=29 May 2015 }}, Leiden University, retrieved 2015-12-11.</ref><ref name=Drew>[https://www.drew.edu/calendar/event/wgst-visiting-scholar-uma-chakravati/ WGST Visiting Scholar: Uma Chakravarti] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180210062046/https://www.drew.edu/calendar/event/wgst-visiting-scholar-uma-chakravati/ |date=10 February 2018 }}, Drew University, 22 October 2012, retrieved 2015-12-15.</ref> She also writes [[Columnist|newspaper columns]] on contemporary issues concerning [[women's rights|women]] and [[human rights]].

Chakravarti has also directed four documentary films{{em dash}}''A Quiet Little Entry'', ''Fragments of a Past'', ''Ek Inquilab Aur Aaya: Lucknow 1920-1949'', and ''Prison Diaries'', all of which focus on, among other issues, women's history in India.

== Early life ==
Uma Chakravarti was born in Delhi on 20 August 1941.<ref name="juliadutta">
{{Cite web |last=Dutta |first=Julia |date=2013-11-10 |title=Julia's Blog: Uma Chakravarti, a larger than life picture |url=http://juliadutta.blogspot.com/2013/11/uma-chakravarti-larger-than-life-picture.html |access-date=2023-09-14 |website=Julia's Blog}}
</ref> Her father was a civil servant, originally from [[Palghat]] in [[Kerala]]. Uma studied in the [[Delhi Public School Society|Delhi Public School]] and, later, [[Mount Carmel College, Bangalore]]. Afterwards, she studied Law at the [[University Law College, Bangalore|College of Law, Bangalore]] and simultaneously completed a Master's in [[History]] from the [[Benaras Hindu University]].<ref name=juliadutta/>

== Career ==
Chakravarti joined the [[Miranda House]], the premier women's college in [[Delhi University]], in 1966.{{sfn|Chakravarti|2014}} She worked there till 1988, working on Buddhism, early Indian history, 19th-century history and contemporary issues. She authored 7 books and over 50 research articles.<ref name=Leiden/><ref name=Drew/>

Since the 1970s, Chakravarti has been associated with the women's movement and the movement for democratic rights. She participated in several fact-finding teams to investigate human rights violations, communal riots and state repression.<ref name=Leiden/>

In most recent work, she has directed two films, one on the life of a child bride [[R. S. Subbalakshmi|Subbulakshmi]] who went on to participate in the [[Indian independence movement]] and the second on the writer [[Mythili Sivaraman]] who worked with labouring men and women, documenting their oppressions.<ref name=juliadutta/>{{sfn|Kumkum Roy, Insights and Interventions|2011|p=13-14}}

[[Jawaharlal Nehru University]] historian [[Kumkum Roy]] has edited a volume of scholarly essays in Chakravarti's honour, stating that she had inspired generations of teachers, students and friends.{{sfn|Kumkum Roy, Insights and Interventions|2011|loc=cover leaf}} Ashley Tellis from [[City University of New York]] adds that she had a profound influence on the lives and careers of scores of young scholars and activists, playing the role of a `founding mother' of Indian feminist history-writing as well as the Indian women's movement.<ref name=Tellis>{{citation |first=Ashley |last=Tellis |title=Book Review: Uma Chakravarti, Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories: Beyond the Kings and Brahmanas of 'Ancient' India |journal=Social Scientist |volume=35 |number=5/6 |year=2007 |pages=67–70 |jstor=27644220}}</ref>

== Personal life ==
Uma is married to [[Anand Chakravarti]], a sociologist. Together they have a daughter Upali and son Siddhartha. She lives in Delhi along with her husband and daughter.<ref name=juliadutta/>

== Works ==
; Books
* ''Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism'' ([[Oxford University Press]], 1987). {{ISBN|8121507499}}.
* ''Delhi Riots: Three Days in the Life of a Nation'' (with [[Nandita Haksar]], Delhi: Lancer International, 1987)
* ''Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai'' ([[Kali for Women]], 1998). {{ISBN|9381017948}}.
* ''From Myths to Markets: Essays on Gender'' (with [[Kumkum Sangari]], [[Indian Institute of Advanced Study]], Simla, 1999)
* ''Gendering Caste through a Feminist Lens'' ([[Stree (publisher)|Stree]], 2002). {{ISBN|8185604541}}.
* ''Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories: Beyond the Kings and Brahmanas of Ancient India'' ([[Tulika Books]], 2006). {{ISBN|8189487043}}.
* ''Shadow Lives: Writings on Widowhood'' (with Preeti Gill, [[Kali for Women]], 2006). {{ISBN|8186706402}}.
; Selected articles
* “Whatever happened to the Vedic Dasi? Orientalism, nationalism and a script for the past.” in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (eds) ''[[Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History]]'' ([[Kali for Women]], 1989). {{ISBN|0813515807}}. (Also included in ''Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories'').
* "Is Buddhism the answer to Brahmanical patriarchy?" in Neera Chandhoke (ed) ''Mapping Histories: Essays Presented to Ravinder Kumar'' (Tulika, 2000). {{ISBN|1843310368}}.
* "A Kashmir diary: Seven days in an armed paradise", in Urvashi Butalia (ed) ''Speaking Peace: Women's Voices from Kashmir'' (2003). {{ISBN|9383074701}}.
* "Reconceptualising gender: Phule, Brahmanism and Brahmanical patriarchy" in Anupama Rao (ed) ''Gender & Caste'' (Zed Books, 2005). {{ISBN|8188965200}}.
* "Oppositional imaginations: Multiple lineages of feminist scholarship," in Rekha Pande (ed) ''A Journey Into Women's Studies: Crossing Interdisciplinary Boundaries'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). {{ISBN|9781137395740}}.
; Films
* ''A Quiet Little Entry''
* ''Fragments of a Past''

=== Reception ===
Chakravarti's ''Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism'', based on her doctoral thesis,<ref name=Kaul>
{{citation |last=Kaul |first=Shonaleeka |title=Peopling history |newspaper=Frontline |volume=23 |number=23 |date=18 November 2006 |url=http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2323/stories/20061201000307200.htm}}
</ref> is regarded as a classic work on ancient India, and is often included in course syllabi of early Indian history courses.{{sfn|Kumkum Roy, Insights and Interventions|2011|p=1}} Chakravarti based her analysis on the Buddhist texts written in [[Pali language|Pali]], the language spoken by the commoners in early India. In her later work, she built on this research to reformulate the issues of social stratification, labour, renunciation and domesticity in early India, with a firm focus on gender, caste and class.<ref name=Tellis/>

''Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories'' is a compilation of 14 essays derived from three decades of work on the history of early India, previously published in various journals and collections. Scholar [[Shonaleeka Kaul]] states that the anthology still retains freshness because it represents a "new take on early Indian history," presenting an understanding of the past beyond the vantage of the elite and the orthodox (the "Kings and Brahmanas"). It is the history of the people on the "margins," where margins is translated as "labouring groups including women who labour and women as a wider category."<ref name=Kaul/> The Introductory chapter offers an account of Chakravarti's own journey through the women's movement as well as her production of India's first feminism-informed histories.<ref name=Tellis/>

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}
'''Sources'''
{{Refbegin}}
* {{citation |last=Chakravarti |first=Uma |chapter=Oppositional Imaginations: Multiple Lineages of Feminist Scholarship |editor-last=Pande |editor-first=Rekha |title=A Journey Into Women's Studies: Crossing Interdisciplinary Boundaries |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kN5CBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA74 |date=23 July 2014 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-137-39574-0 |pages=74–}}
* {{citation |first=Gail |last=Omvedt |authorlink=Gail Omvedt |title=Review: Towards a Theory of 'Brahmanic Patriarchy' |journal=[[Economic and Political Weekly]] |volume=35 |number=4 |date=22 January 2000 |pages=187–190 |jstor=4408843}}
* {{citation |last=Roy |first=Kumkum |title=Insights and Interventions: Essays in Honour of Uma Chakravarti |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TGzbPNdtJGsC |year=2011 |publisher=Primus Books |isbn=978-93-80607-22-1 |ref={{sfnref|Kumkum Roy, Insights and Interventions|2011}}}}
{{Refend}}

== Further reading ==
* Baxi, Pratiksha, Uma Chakravarti, Suman Bisht and Janaki Abraham (2008) "Reclaiming Spaces: Gender Politics on a University Campus," In Radhika Coomaraswamy and Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham (eds) ''Constellations of Violence: Feminist Interventions in South Asia''. Women Unlimited, Delhi.

== External links ==
* Interview: Dr. Uma Chakravarti, [https://genderstudiesgroup.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/gsg3-2-2.pdf Gender Studies Journal, Vol. I(3)], [https://genderstudiesgroup.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/journal-uma-2.pdf Gender Studies Journal, Vol. I(4)], Delhi University, November 2011.
* Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India: Gender, Caste, Class and State. EPW, April 3, 1993. [https://web.archive.org/web/20171224213716/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ba07/ebdef62fd63c435a972faabf6e28d08131e6.pdf Pdf.]

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chakravarti, Uma}}
[[Category:Indian women historians]]
[[Category:Historians of India]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:1941 births]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian historians]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian women writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian writers]]
[[Category:Indian feminist writers]]
[[Category:Delhi University alumni]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian historians]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian women writers]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian writers]]
[[Category:Women writers from Delhi]]
[[Category:Feminist historians]]
[[Category:Women educators from Delhi]]
[[Category:Educators from Delhi]]
[[Category:Mount Carmel College, Bangalore alumni]]

Uma Chakravarti - Revision history

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