Meenakshi Jain

Meenakshi Jain is an Indian political scientist and historian who served as an associate professor of history at Gargi College, Delhi. In 2014, she was nominated as a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research by the Government of India. In 2020, she was conferred with the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award, for her work in the field of literature and education.

Jain wrote Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing Colonial Discourse on the practice of Sati in colonial India and had also authored a school history textbook, Medieval India, for NCERT, which replaced a previous textbook co-authored by Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra et al.

Early life and education
Meenakshi Jain is the daughter of journalist Girilal Jain, a former editor of The Times of India. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Delhi. Her thesis on the social base and relations between caste and politics was published in 1991.

Career
Jain is an associate professor of history at Gargi College, affiliated to the University of Delhi. In December 2014, she was nominated as a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research by the Indian government.

Medieval India (textbook)
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum noted Jain to be an amateur historian, who despite being trained as a sociologist, was inducted as a historian in service of a political mission. Her Medieval India rendered the time-span through a monoscopic clash-of-civilizations narrative between the forces of good (Hindus) and evil (Muslims); the tensions and internal conflicts between these seemingly homogeneous groups were done away with. Nonetheless, Nussbaum found her work to be a small "oasis of intelligence", subtlety and literacy, when contrasted with other publications of the new NCERT series, published under the aegis of the Hindu Nationalist government; Professor Pralay Kanungo of Jawaharlal Nehru University reflected similar sentiments.

Similarly, sociologist Nandini Sundar found Medieval India to have portrayed the exactions of the Sultanate rulers and the Mughals as anti-Hindu acts; besides, all of their contributions to the social, cultural and political were ignored. She saw this as part of a broader pattern of state-induced historical negationism to suit the need of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. John Stratton Hawley of Columbia University found the book to misrepresent the gensis of the Bhakti movement by presenting it as a response to Shankaracharya's monism than to the egalitarian message of Islam.

Rama and Ayodhya
Pralay Kanungo found Jain's Rama and Ayodhya to be a subtle and sophisticated work that managed to stand apart from the earlier ahistorical propaganda by Hindutva-leaning historians. Nonetheless, while by cherry-picking from random sources, she had managed to produce a useful compilation, it lacked in coherence and authenticity.

Books

 * Congress Party, 1967-77: Role of Caste in Indian Politics (Vikas, 1991), ISBN 0706953193.
 * Medieval India: A Textbook for Class XI (NCERT, 2002), ISBN 8174501711.
 * Rajah-Moonje Pact: Documents On A Forgotten Chapter Of Indian History (with Devendra Svarupa, Low Price Publishers, 2007), ISBN 8184540787.
 * Parallel Pathways: Essays on Hindu-Muslim Relations, 1707-1857 (Konark Publishers, 2010), ISBN 9788122007831.
 * The India They Saw (co-edited with Sandhya Jain, 4 Volumes, Prabhat Prakashan), ISBN 8184301065, ISBN 8184301073, ISBN 8184301081, ISBN 818430109X.
 * Rama and Ayodhya (Aryan Books International, 2013), ISBN 8173054517.
 * Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing Colonial Discourse (Aryan Books International, 2016), ISBN 8173055521
 * The Battle for Rama: Case of the Temple at Ayodhya (Aryan Books International, 2017), ISBN 8173055793.
 * "Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples: Episodes from Indian History" (Aryan Books International, 2019), ISBN 8173056196.

Selected articles

 * "Congress 1967: Strategies of Mobilisation in D. A. Low" in The Indian National Congress Centenary Hindsights, 1988.
 * "Backward Castes and Social Change in U. P. and Bihar" in Srinivas, Caste: Its 20th Century Avatar (2000).
 * A review of Romila Thapar's Somanatha: Many Voices of a History over The Pioneer (India).