JOYA CHATTERJI, emeritus professor of south Asian history at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Trinity College, has won the Wolfson History Prize 2024 for her book, Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century.
Worth £50,000, this is described as “the most prestigious history writing prize in the UK”.
Chatterji’s 842-page book is a history of the Indian subcontinent over the past 100 years, but it is also part memoir and personal enough to be called “genre defying”.
The judging panel, which included historians Mary Beard, Richard Evans, Sudhir Hazareesingh, Carole Hillenbrand and Diarmaid MacCulloch, called the book “a captivating history of modern south Asia, full of fascinating insights about the lives of its peoples. Written with verve and energy, this book beautifully blends the personal and the historical.”
David Cannadine, chair of the judging panel, said at the prize giving ceremony in London on Monday (2): “Shadows at Noon is a highly ambitious history of 20th-century south Asia that defies easy categorisation, combining rigorous historical research with personal reminiscence and family anecdotes. Chatterji writes with wit and perception, shining a light on themes that have shaped the subcontinent during this period.”
The judges also said: “This unique academic work – interwoven with Chatterji’s own reflections on growing up in India – adopts a conversational writing style, and takes a thematic rather than chronological approach. Everyday experiences of food, cinema and the household are given an equal footing to discussions about politics and nationhood.
“As a result, the cultural vibrancy of south Asia shines through the research, allowing readers a more nuanced understanding of the region.”
In May, when Eastern Eye introduced a category for the best book on history at its Arts, Culture and Theatre Awards (ACTA), Chatterji was the winner for Shadows at Noon (published by The Bodley Head).
ACTA judges described the book as “a brilliant and authoritative history of the Indian subcontinent” that could be dubbed a “romantic history”, exploring culture, faith, food and customs in a way that has never really been done before.
The book rails against narratives of inherent differences between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and emphasises the many features its people have in common, the judges added.
Chatterji paid tribute to her aunt, her father’s widowed sister, who she described as a poetist and a Maoist.
“She was the most important influence on my life,” said Chatterji. “She was very curious and a contradiction of characteristics. She wore the widow’s whites, she ate the widow’s diet. But she was a very ardent Naxal. She travelled several times to China.”
There was another Asian professor among the other five shortlisted Wolfson authors who each received £5,000 – Nandini Das, professor of early modern literature and culture in the English faculty at Oxford University and author of Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire (Bloomsbury Publishing).
The other shortlisted books were Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade by Nicholas Radburn (Yale University Press); Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution by Andrew Seaton (Yale University Press); Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg (William Collins); and Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942- 2022 by Frank Trentmann (Allen Lane).
Since the Wolfson History Prize was established in 1972 by the Wolfson Foundation, an independent charity with a focus on research and education, it has been won by some of Britain’s leading historians, among them Simon Schama, Eric Hobsbawm, Amanda Vickery, Antony Beevor, Christopher Bayly, and Antonia Fraser.
Paul Ramsbottom, chief executive of the Wolfson Foundation, commented: “For over 50 years, the Wolfson History Prize has celebrated exceptional history writing that is rooted in meticulous research with engaging and accessible prose. Shadows at Noon is a remarkable example of this, and Joya Chatterji captivates readers with her compelling storytelling of modern south Asian history.”
Chatterji was born in Delhi in 1964 to a Bengali father, Jognath Chatterji, and an English mother, Valerie Ann Sawyer. She stood “first class first” in history at Lady Shri Ram College, and came in 1985 to Trinity College, Cambridge, where she completed a three-year degree in two, and then a PhD in the history of Hindu communalism in Bengal. Poor health forced her to give up day-to-day teaching in 2019, but she continues to supervise PhD students “from all over”, including India and Pakistan.
In India, the relationship between guru and shishya (teacher and pupil) is practically one of worship of the former by the latter. No questioning is allowed. But Chatterji’s dedication in Shadows at Noon is sincerely meant: “One learns far more from students than one teaches them. This book is dedicated to my brilliant and beloved graduate students, who are (still) my learned instructors.”
In an interview with Eastern Eye, Chatterji spoke about her relationship with her students: “I have a common rule, the first of which is that the very moment they meet me or enter the room, we are equals, fellow toilers in the field of history. I know many are far better than I am today or will achieve more than I have. They call me by name – ‘Joya’, no ‘Professor’ nonsense.
“When their numbers grew large, I put down inter-student rivalries the second I smelt them. Not with an iron fist, but by explaining why they needed each other. Most have become close friends, essential parts of my life, and also mentees for life. At any given time, at least four are having a crisis which needs my urgent attention.
“Long after they have graduated, and have found jobs in foreign countries or distant cities, I drop everything for them, and they do the same in return.”
In her book, Chatterji says those who pursue romantic love across boundaries of caste, religion or class in India are “just asking to be murdered”.
One of her more gripping chapters sets out why love “continues to be a dangerous business in south Asia”. She has given several examples of how love can lead to the killing of one or both of the lovers.
She said instances of couples being hounded are so common “that we don’t even notice when we read in the paper that people are abducted, arrested, the girl is returned to her home. The guy ends up dead.
“It takes guts to love someone in India. There’s this whole concept of hum bhag jayenge (we will run away). You can’t bhago (escape) anywhere very far without being tracked down.”
Chatterji pointed out: “In her debut novel of 1997, The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy writes of ‘love laws’ that lay down rules about ‘who should be loved, how and how much’. The list is long. One can break them in a host of ways – by transgressing prohibited degrees of kinship, by adultery, by crossing caste, class or religious boundaries, or by loving someone of the same sex or gender. All these forms of love meet severe social sanction, in some cases backed by the courts.
“Love across caste lines – particularly between ‘touchable’ and ‘untouchable’ castes remains perilous in the extreme. ‘Untouchables’ who dare to love ‘touchables’ risk their lives, and they know it,” the historian added.
