Department of History

Vision:

History of a country for its citizens is like memory for an individual. It will be useful to its inheritor to the extent it is comprehensive as well as accurate. A false appraisal of the past would be as harmful to a country as a false store of memory for an individual. This Department was headed by Professors K M Panikkar and Mohammad Habib from the foundation of this University, all periods of Indian history were given attention along with European history, taught for comparative purposes, especially keeping in view the expanding field of modern historiography. Under Professor S. Nurul Hasan, the Department also developed Archaeology, with excavation at the famous proto-historic site of Atranjikhera, Jakhera as well as Fatehpur Sikri, and was recognized one of the earliest Centres of Advanced Study in the country in 1968. The Department launched an ambitious publication programme under a special grant of Government of India constituted in 1958, and continued by the UGC. However, medieval Indian History remains the special area of research assigned to the Department. Teaching in ancient and modern Indian History has been throughout maintained apart from research in these periods being encouraged. As a result in medieval India, the Department can claim to have made substantial contribution to research in economic and intellectual history along with political history.

Mission:

The Department/Centre of Advanced Study, aims at expanding into new fields of study in medieval Indian history such as women’s history, technology, Environmental History, Art and Architecture, secular thought, regional/local history. It also seeks to strengthen its coverage of ancient and modern history. Epigraphy is an area in which the Department especially needs to develop expertise in respect of both Prakrit/Sanskrit and Persian. A balanced and correct appraisal of our country’s history is very important and the Department hopes to contribute substantially to pursue that aim.

Future Plan:

Areas of further development of the work of the Department of History, A.M.U.

Teaching

While the Department has been recognized as a Centre of Advanced Study since 1968 for its work of research in the field of Medieval Indian History, it has always, in the realm of teaching placed equal emphasis on all periods of Indian history. It is, however, important that we should also extend teaching to the history of other countries; and accordingly, modern European History and Islamic History are also taught at B.A. and M.A. levels. However, it must be appreciated that at both Bachelors’ and Masters’ levels, it is necessary to make available to students papers on East Asian (Chinese and Japanese) history, the history of ancient Middle East, African history, and Russian history. All of these were once taught, being mainly sustained by interest taken in these by foreign students. Now we do not receive many foreign students in the faculty of Social Sciences and so the papers were dropped. However, it must be recognized that the papers are important for comparative purposes, for a better approach to Indian history itself, and should, therefore, be restored with appropriate expansion of staff.

Research Facilities

The History Department has a large library of its own, seeking to contain practically all important works on different periods of Indian history, its holdings on history of other countries, however, also need to be expanded. Similarly, there is need to acquire old documents (in which it is already rich), such acquisitions having become less frequent in the last two decades. Such acquisitions require both expertise and funds: the former is available, the latter have to be enlarged.

We also need expertise in reading shikasta (cursive script) used in medieval Persian documents. We hope to organize short courses in this for research students.

Publications

The Department has recently revived its publication programme, with some monographs and the reprinting Badauni’s famous history in three volumes and a versified 17^th century historical work on the Punjab. It is hoped that we should be able to publish both texts and translations of historical sources, especially of medieval India, in which field, owing to paucity of knowledge of Persian, work in India has greatly slowed down.

Archaeology

The Department had made its mark in the field of archaeology mainly with excavations at Atranji Khera and Fatehpur Sikri, with a comprehensive report on the former authored by Professor R.C. Gaur. Regrettably, the archaeological work has slowed down since then, with the post of Archaeology and Ancient Indian history being left unfilled. It is hoped that with a filling of the post and adequate financing being available work would be organized in the field of both exploration and excavation, special attention being paid to medieval archaeology, besides the conventional prehistoric or protohistoric fields.

Cartography

Background:

Historical Geography is a recognized branch of the discipline of History. It owed much to the visionary approach of Professor S. Nurul Hasan, Chairman of the Department, 1958-72, that a very large number of both medium-scale and large-scale maps were acquired and a ‘Cartographic Lab’ established within the Department in the late 1960s. From the beginning the objective of the ‘Lab’, was to produce accurate historical maps for class-room use, as also research-generated maps, often furnished to accompany research papers and Ph.D. theses. The work on these lines began with Zahoor Ali Khan, the first whole-time cartographer in the Department. He published papers with maps ranging from ancient times to 19^th century; and these have recently been published by Primus as Studies in Indian Historical Geography. The Cartography Lab was the major site where maps for two major historical  atlases, The Atlas of the Mughal Empire (1982) by Irfan Habib, published by the CAS/OUP, 1982 and An Atlas of Ancient Indian History by Irfan Habib and Faiz Habib, also published by OUP, 2011, have been prepared. (Faiz Habib is the Department’s Cartographer). A major aspect of both these publications has not only been detailed ‘political’ mapping directly based on sources, but also economic mapping, in which too the atlases have been pioneers.

Perspective:

It is necessary that the work of the Cartography Lab continues on lines already established: large-scale maps of various part of India and neighbouring regions should continue to be acquired along with Advanced Atlases of the world and other countries, and cartographic work, with increased use of on-line material, should continue.

            Now that ancient India (to 800 AD) and Mughal India have been covered by the above-mentioned two major atlases, it is desirable to direct attention more to the proper mapping of the period AD 800-1556, and of the colonial period (1757-1947). Besides the obvious need to provide these periods with research-based atlases at level with those already published, there is need to provide necessary map-making facilities to the Archaeology Section, whenever, hopefully, archeological exploration and excavation work once again  begins.

            At the minimum, the present assets of the Cartography Lab should be carefully preserved. At present, only one Cartographer (Faiz Habib) is at work, and he retires next year (2022). It is necessary that the assigned posts (two trained cartographers) should be duly filled and the work of the Cartography Section be not only continued at the present pace, but also further improved and enlarged. It is, perhaps, the only one of its kind in India (outside Tamilnadu) and needs not only to be preserved but also further developed.

The Archaeology section houses more than 15000 artefacts and antiquities discovered in various exploration and excavations carried by the section under the able leadership of the archaeologists such as Prof. R.C. Gaur and Prof. M.D.N Sahi at the sites of Atranjikhera, Jakhera, Lal Qila, Daulatpur,  Sidhpur and Fatehpur Sikri.

Archaeology Section is a technical section that has to provide technical expertise in the field of archaeological exploration and excavation. Presently the Section is comprised of Display Gallery, Drawing Section, Chemical Laboratory, Computer Section and Medieval archaeology Section, Pottery and antiquity Yards and a conference room. The staff of the section has five technical posts including two assistant Archaeologists, one Senior Photographer, one Lab Assistant, one Senior Curator and a Daily Wager.

Research Library, CAS, Department of History, AMU, Aligarh is famous for its valuable collections of manuscripts, microfilms, rotographs, transcripts, farmans and coins of medieval times.    It has an extremely rich and rare collection of Persian sources in the form of chronicles, memoirs, and archival documents. Prof. S.Nurul Hasan Reading Room (for research scholars) at ground floor and Seminar Library (for M.A. Students) at second floor are attached to the main library. 

Library of the Department of History currently holds about

• Books & Journals- 40,310

• Rare Manuscripts-101

• Transcripts of MSS-127

• Rotographs of MSS-356

• Microfilms-493

• Coins-816

• Articles-918

• Mughal Paintings & Photographs (copies)—400

Personal Collections gifted to the Library:

1. Prof Irfan Habib Collection: Copies of farmans and documents have been recently gifted by Prof. Irfan Habib to the Research Library of the Department.
2. Prof. R.P. Tripathi Collection: An extensive collection of books has been recently gifted by Honourable Member of Parliament Prof. Rita Bahuguna to the Research Library of the Department.
3. Prof. I.H. Siddiqui Collection
4. W.H. Siddiqui Collection.

• We also have huge collection of e-resource books and e- journals, Persian / Arabic texts.
• All the rare manuscripts and microfilms are maintained in a fully air-conditioned room.

STEP 1:  Procedure of Purchase of Books

1. Books recommended by the teachers of the department and students to the library.
2. Recommendations are checked by Library Staff for duplicate, availability, etc.
3. Recommended books are approved by Chairperson. 
4. Finally, approved books are purchased through Maulana Azad Library.
5. Physical verification and checking of books received against orders for them.
6. Accessioning of books in the accession register of Maulana Azad Library as well as in the register of the Departmental Seminar Library.

Note: Gifts of books are also accepted, with due acknowledgement made.

STEP 2: Technical Processing

1. Check card are issued to library staff for writing of accession numbers on them.
2. Staff note down accession number of books on check card for each book.
3. While noting the accession numbers, books are physically checked and if a book is damaged/beyond repair, it is removed from shelves.
4. Books placed on shelves according to their classification number.

Annual Stock Verification

Standard Operating Procedures for Departmental Computer Laboratory

Standard Operating Procedures for Students Seminar

1. The department has a Seminar Library exclusively dedicated for the use of Post-Graduate Students.
2. To Study in the Seminar students may get books from the departmental library.
3. Some frequently used books are also kept in the Seminar Room for the students that are available to them M.A. students.
4. This Seminar is managed by a Secretary and Joint Secretary appointed by the Chairperson from among the students.
5. The secretary used to be the topper of the III semester and the Joint Secretary used to be topper of the Ist Semester.
6. The Seminar Library is cleaned regularly.

Standard Operating Procedures for Classrooms

1. All Class Rooms are cleaned every day before the classes commence.
2. The Class Rooms are well knit and lighting facilities are regularly inspected.
3. Each class room has a white board.
4. Chamber of each teacher also has a whiteboard. 
5. Some Class rooms are ICT enabled. LCD projectors are used to aid and improve the teaching-learning process.

Standard Operating Procedures for Student Mentoring

1. As per the decision of the Board of Studies of the Department there is a policy for students Mentoring/Tutorial  Programme for the advance and slow learners.
2. The mentoring or tutorial group consists of 4 to 5 students in each course.
3. This provides different atmosphere in comparison to classroom teaching, where a student opens up and share his/her  ideas more freely.
4. Meetings of course teacher and mentor/tutorial teachers are held  twice in a semester to discuss the progress of each student in the particular course of study.

Standard Operating Procedures for Career Counselling

1. There is an advisor for each semester for each programme of studies.
2. Students are advised to meet their advisors before selecting any course in their respective programme of studies.
3. The career counselling is routinely carried out by the Career Counselling Committee of the department and experts are also invited occasionally.

Standard Operating Procedure for Facilitating Differently Abled Students

1. Effort is made to keep the building of the department friendly, with rails and ramps, for the differently abled.
2. Braille Software/facilities are available in the Braille Section of the Maulana Azad Library 
3. Scribes for examination are provided to the visually challenged candidates.

Standard Operating Procedures of Cartography Laboratory

1. Department has a well-equipped and well-furnished Cartography Laboratory.

2. To get a map prepared by the cartographer, staff and the students have to get permission from the Chairperson through an application.

3. The cartographer after receiving the application duly forwarded by the Chairperson, prepares the map.

4. The cartographer prepares map/plan of the routes and sites after surveys/explorations conducted by teachers and staff.

5. Display maps for classrooms are also prepared by him on demand of teachers.

6. This cartography lab is for the academic and research purpose only.

7. The lab is routinely cleaned and maintained by the concerned staff.