Renowned historian, former ICHR Chairman MGS Narayanan passes away

Kozhikode, April 26 (IANS) MGS Narayanan, the former Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) passed away here on Saturday.

He was suffering from age-related issues and was ailing for a while. He was 93-years-old and his last rites will be held later in the day here.

He was the head of the department of Calicut University from 1976 to 1990 and headed the ICHR from 2001-03.

He was born in Ponnani near here on August 20, 1932.

After his early education in and around Kozhikode, Thrissur he did his Masters in History from Madras Christian College and secured his PhD from University in Kerala in 1973.

His PhD thesis empirically reconstructed the history of Kerala between 800 and 1124 CE.

His thesis had been highly rated by many historians as one of the ablest and most thorough Indian thesis.

He was the general secretary of Indian History Congress during 1982–1985, and a visiting fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Moscow University in 1991.

He served as Member-Secretary of the Indian Council of Historical Research during 1990–1992.

Over the years, Narayanan has been acknowledged as a specialist in ancient history and a believer in Hindutva to the extent that he is a Hindu and an inheritor of a great tradition.

He has written over 200 books and was equally adept in English, Tamil and Sanskrit.

Another lesser known fact of MGS as he is popularly known is that he was a poet too and also a painter, but history was always his first love.

Since he was strong is his area of interest i.e. history, just like he had numerous admirers, he also had a good number of critics as he used to express himself in politics and other issues also.

He is survived by his wife and two children.

--IANS

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