Provided by Wikipedia Uma Chakravarti (born 20 August 1941) is an Indian historian and filmmaker. Beginning in the 1980s, Chakravarti wrote extensively on Indian history highlighting issues relating to gender, caste, and class, publishing seven books over the course of her career. Her body of work mostly focused on the history of Buddhism, and that of ancient and 19th century India.
Born to a bureaucrat from Palghat, Kerala, Chakravarti went to school in Delhi and Bangalore. She completed her master's in history from the Benaras Hindu University and ventured into teaching. Chakravarti established a career as an educator at the Miranda House, University of Delhi, where she taught from 1966 to 1998. She published her first book''Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism'' as a part of her doctorate study in 1987. Her subsequent writings, the most successful of which are ''Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai'' (1998) and ''Gendering Caste through a Feminist Lens'' (2002), have been well received by both the audience and fellow academicians.
A leading scholar of women's and feminist history writing in subcontinent, she has been called the founding mother of the women's movement in India. Apart from engaging with feminist issues, she has also worked as a democratic rights activist, participating in several fact-finding committees including the International Tribunal on Justice for Gujarat. She also writes newspaper columns on contemporary issues concerning women and human rights.
Chakravarti has also directed four documentary films''A Quiet Little Entry'', ''Fragments of a Past'', ''Ek Inquilab Aur Aaya: Lucknow 1920-1949'', and ''Prison Diaries'', all of which focus on, among other issues, women's history in India.
