K. N. Panikkar

K. N. Panikkar (born 1936) is an Indian historian, associated with the "Marxist school" of historiography.

Panikkar was Professor of Modern Indian History at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Prior to joining JNU, he taught at University of Delhi. In 2001, he was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kerala. He was the first Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Higher Education Council. Currently he serves as the Chairman of the Kerala Council for Historical Research and the General President of the Indian History Congress.He was appointed as the Chairman of the Planning Commission's Subcommittee on Strategic Funding for State Higher Education System in August 2011.He is also a member of the Planning Commission's Steering Committee on Higher and Technical Education.

K.N. Panikkar has written and 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Communalism and the ICHR volume on Towards Freedom, 1940: A Documentary History of the Freedom Struggle (suppressed and withdrawn from press by the former Bharatiya Janata Party-led regime, now forthcoming). He is engaged in preparing a monograph on the intellectual history of colonial India for which he has been awarded a Bhabha Senior Fellowship.

His methods and his expressed positions in public life have evoked harsh criticism from exponents of Hindu nationalism, particularly during the period of Bharatiya Janata Party government of 1998 to 2004.

Panikkar has been active in criticising the rise of "Nationalist" history in India. His books include Against Lord and State: Religion and Peasant Uprisings in Malabar; Culture and Consciousness in Modern India; Culture, Ideology and Hegemony – Intellectuals and Social Consciousness in Colonial India, and Before the Night Falls.

K.N. Panikkar is a staunch campaigner for minority rights. He is mostly known for his work on intellectual and cultural history of colonial India. His contribution to the writing on modern Indian history has considerably enriched the secular tradition of Indian historiography. He has consistently taken progressive positions concerning issues of national importance like secularism, democracy and human rights. Panikkar's contribution to the writing on modern Indian history has considerably enriched the secular tradition of Indian historiography. He has consistently taken progressive positions concerning issues of national importance like secularism, democracy and human rights. During the last two decades, he has been engaged in a relentless campaign in defense of these values which are foundational to the principles of Indian society.