Nirode Kumar Barooah (born August 1, 1937 in Nagaon) is an Indo-German historian who publishes mainly on topics of Indo-German relations as well as modern Indian history especially that of the British administration in the early 19th century with a special focus on Northeast India. He is one of the most influential historians of Assamese history.
He was born on August 1, 1937, to Kusum Barooah and Dr. Lalit Kumar Barooah. His father was a medical doctor and co-founder of Srimanta Sankar Mission and author of numerous works on folk medicine, family planning and child care.
In 1967, while working as a research assistant at the University of Heidelberg, he met his future wife, Elisabeth Becher. After their marriage in 1971, they moved their center of life to Cologne. His marriage to Elisabeth produced two daughters.
He started his academic career in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in art from Cotton College, Guwahati. He then completed his Bachelor's, Master's and Bachelor of Laws degrees from University of Benares from 1955 to 1961.
In 1961, he went to School of Oriental and African Studies in London as a research student in modern Indian history. His research area was the ideas of administration under British rule in India in the early 19th century, with special reference to northeast India.
In 1964, he received his Ph.D. with a dissertation on David Scott, a Scottish officer in the East India Company, which was first published in 1970 and appeared in a second, revised edition in 2015.
From 1965 to 1971, he taught modern history at the University of Delhi. During his teaching career, he conducted extensive research on the Indian freedom movement with special reference to Assam.
His move to Germany in 1971 simultaneously focused his attention on a new subject area: Indo-German relations in the period from 1885 to 1939, and his subsequent years of research in German archives enabled him to publish several books and research papers in this field.
In Germany, Barooah worked as a research associate at the universities in Bonn and Heidelberg and served for many years as a consultant for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit (now Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit).
In 2021, Nirode Kumar Barooah was awarded the Lokapriya Gopinath Bardoloi Award for National Integration and National Contribution by the Indian state of Assam for his extensive life's work on the history of Assam, which was presented to him on October 3, 2021 by Indian Vice President Venkaiah Naidu in Guwahati.[1]
English
Assamese
English
Assamese