Academics
The banks of the Sindhu river, and the other northern river basins, were the theatre of the Mahabharata war and the cradle of the Indus Valley Civilisation. These are also the lands where languages and lyricism flourished. In this cultural melting pot evolved many a religion and diverse cults, jogis and sufis, Sikhs and Shias. Girija Kumar's seminal work, The Indus People : Saraiki Saga and Sufi-Sant Renaissance deals with a mozaic of myths and migrations, thoughts and beliefs, cultural practices and castes, and brings to his readers a memorable work that leaves scope for further investigations into the roots of northern India's peoples and their poetry. It is a book of relevance to scholars of indology, history and sociology, and is of equal interest to the student of military history and mythology; it is a book for the subcontinent- watcher who want to know where India and Pakistan are coming from, and how their present reflect their past.
Born in 1925 at Dera Ghazi Khan (Pakistan), Girja Kumar is a veteran research scholar. The man behind the Sapru House library, he has held many important positions including Chairman of the Delhi Library Board (1985-86) and President of the Indian Library Association (1983-85). He was Associate, Oriental Division, Library of Congress, Washington DC during 1954-55. He retired as chief librarian of the Jawaharlal Nehru University library in 1985. His world has been a world of books. While he wrote books on censorship and education, he always contemplated producing a book on the greatest cult figure of modem times ? Mahatma Gandhi. Brahmacharya, Gandhi and His Women Associates is based on extensive research and quotes of the main players while delineating the Mahatma?s relationship with his women associates. The present book, in that sense, is a biography within a biography. Girja Kumar was associated as a book critic with several national publications and wrote regularly for The Indian Express (1975-79) and The Week (1984-87). He has published a definitive biography of world-renowned librarian Dr S R Ranganathan, besides publishing an innovative work on the ?arrogance of intellectual power?. His The Book on Trial, Fundamentalism and Censorship in India was widely acclaimed.
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