Obituary

Her death last year, from cancer, at the age of 61, was a deep political loss that left a personal void and even ended a life-world for many people. Each of us has our private and collective memories of Sudesh, and sorting through the years of friendship, political sharing, the large memories and the small memories, is not an exercise that can be easily undertaken or ever completed.

Dharma Kumar was a controversial figure, one whose role it was to call into question the comfortable views of a series of established orthodoxies. At times in doing so she could rub even close friends the wrong way. But no one who studied with her will forget her generosity (whether intellectual or personal) and the wide intellectual horizons she opened up. In an academic world where petty intrigues are the rule, there was nothing in the least small about Dharma Kumar.