Pandey , Bishwa Nath , 1929-1982 , Professor of modern Indian history and author

Pandey , Bishwa Nath , 1929-1982 , Professor of modern Indian history and author

Bishwa Nath Pandey ('Bish') was born on 30 October 1929, in the village of Bhatwalia, Deoria District, Uttar Pradesh, India. He read law at the University of Benares, but in 1955 decided to leave his legal practice in order to study Indian history at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He joined the staff of the School as a lecturer in Modern Indian History in 1963 and became Reader in 1980.

He wrote a number of books including The Introduction of English Law into India (1964); a successful anthology, A Book of India (1964); The Break-Up of British India (1969), which established him as an authority on the Indian nationalist movement; and a biography of Jawaharlal Nehru, Nehru (published in 1976). Subsequently, he turned his attention to the post 1947 period, and produced South and South East Asia, 1945-1979 (1980). At the time of his death in 1982, Dr. Pandey was working on a major study of the history of post-independence India.

He was married twice, with one daughter by his first marriage, and two daughters by his second. He died on 21 November 1982, shortly after chairing a public discussion on the new Columbia film Gandhi.