Amalendu De

Amalendu De (1929–16 May 2014) was Guru Nanak Professor of History at Jadavpur University, where he specialised in the history of the Indian independence movement. He served for some time as president and as secretary of the Asiatic Society and in 1982 was president of the Indian History Congress at its meeting in Aligarh.

Early life De was the son of a lawyer, born at Madaripur, Faridpur district, Bengal British India (now in Bangladesh) in 1929. From the age of 16 he was educated in Calcutta, ultimately studying at post-graduate level at the Calcutta University. He taught at Uluberia College and Murlidhar College before joining the faculty at Jadavpur University.

Career De was appalled that his country had been divided on religious lines. He was a Marxist historian and a humanist, promoting the ideals of a society without communal divisions. He supported closer ties between India and China, and was general-secretary of the West Bengal branch of the Indo-China Friendship Society.

Awarded a D. Litt. by Jadavpur University, He died on 16 May 2014; His 1994 monograph on the subject of the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in India, titled Prasanga Anuprabesh (Essays on Infiltration), was subject to much criticism from supporters of Communism and other left-wing ideologies, as well as from Islamic radicals. He argued that the rise of small pockets of jihadists around the border with Bangladesh might eventually lead to major security problems and he was in particular critical of the rise of unregistered madrassas. He had to settle for publication by a small publisher and was accused by his opponents of facilitating the Hindutva agenda of the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal.