Meenakshi Jain

Meenakshi Jain Biography

Meenakshi Jain is an Indian historian, scholar, author and political scientist. She is the daughter of leading journalist and empathic and strong supporter of Indira Gandhi, Girilal Jain. Similar to her father, she is sympathetic to Hindu revivalism and Hindu nationalism. In fact she published her father’s work on Hinduism The Hindu Phenomenon after his death. Meenakshi is also known as the author of the controversial book - Medieval India. Rama and Ayodhya – a non-fiction work is her recent book. Jain currently serves as an Associate Professor of History at Gargi College, University of Delhi. She was a Fellow of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen Murti.

She is the daughter of journalist Girilal Jain, who worked with Times of India since 1950 till 1988. She has one brother and two sisters. Her sister Sandhya Jain is a social development consultant and a columnist with The Pioneer. After her Master’s Meenakshi Jain completed Ph.D. in political science from the University of Delhi in the year 1991. She was a fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. In 2014 she was nominated to Indian Council of Historical Research by Narendra Modi’s government.

As an author she is best known for the work - Medieval India : A Textbook for Class XI (2002), which invited many controversies too. ‘Parallel Pathways’, ‘Rajah-Moonje Pact: Documents on a Forgotten Chapter of Indian History’ and ‘Rama and Ayodhya’ are her other non-fiction works. Her works have been reviewed by many foreign critics apart from Indian literals. Jain also wrote a review of Romila Thapar's Somanatha: Many Voices of a History. Apart from her works as a historian she also wrote a few articles.

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Updated: April 03, 2016