History Hour 25 – “Cultural Resistance in the Era of Globalization” by Prof. K. N. Panikkar – Monday, 14th August 2006.

Prof. K. N. Panikkar is among the foremost historians of modern India. His books include ‘Against Lord and State: Religion and Peasant Uprisings in Malabar’, ‘Culture and Consciousness in Modern India’, Cultural, Ideology and Hegemony – Intellectuals and Social Consciousness in Colonial India’ and ‘Before the Night Falls’. He has also edited a number of books including ‘A Concerned Indian’s Guide to Communalism’ and the ICHR volume on ‘Towards Freedom, 1940, A Documentary History of the Freedom Struggle’ (suppressed and withdrawn from press by the former BJP-led regime, now forthcoming). He is currently engaged in preparing a monograph on the intellectual history of Colonial India for which he has been awarded Homi Bhabha Senior Fellowships.

K. N. Panikkar (b. 1936), vice-chancellor, Sree Sankaracharya University, Kalady, has established himself as a historian of international repute, original and authentic in his views on the Medieval and Modern history of India and the World. An outstanding academic luminary, he holds prestigious Visiting Professorships in many Universities in India, Europe and America. As an acknowledged Scholar and Resource Person of History, he has been officiating as the Chairperson of Expert Committees and Councils of establishments and institutions as variedas IGNOU, ICHR, World Book Encyclopaedia, JNU, Gazetteers and the National Archives. He is the Chairman of Kerala council for Historical Research (KCHR).

A life-long student and researcher in the historical discipline, he has been very prolific as an author as well. He has published eight highly rated books on the ideological, ethnic, socio-political and economic undercurrents of the Modernist Phase of History. He has edited seven monumental volumes of historical studies with Prefaces and Explanatory Notes for publishers in India and abroad. He has contributed sixteen articles to various Anthologies of History and has fifteen original Research Papers to this credit.

He had delivered fifteen Memorial and Foundation Lectures in India and abroad and has visited twenty-two countries in the East and in the West as our Cultural Emissary.