Pandey, Dr Bishwa Nath

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0102 PP MS 22
Held at	: School of Oriental and African Studies   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.soas.ac.uk/Archives/home.html ›
Full title	: Pandey, Dr Bishwa Nath
Date(s)	: Created 1930s-1980
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 8 boxes
Name of creator(s)	: Pandey | Bishwa Nath | 1929-1982 | Professor of modern Indian history and author

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

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.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers, 1930s-1980, of Dr Bishwa Nath Pandey, including his correspondence, photographs and notes, mainly relating to his book Nehru (1976), as well as early manuscript and typescripts drafts of the work itself.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Unrestricted.

Conditions governing reproduction:

No publication without written permission. Apply to archivist in the first instance.

Finding aids:

Unpublished handlist.

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Donated in 1984.

Allied Materials

Related material:

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

Rules or conventions:

Date(s) of descriptions:
15 May 2000