Another foundational South Asia scholar has alas left us, around two months ago now. Eugene F. “Gene” Irschick was the smartest, kindest, and most inspiring dissertation supervisor that this clueless UC Berkeley graduate student could have ever hoped for. He repeatedly guided my progress when my regular advisor, Tom Metcalf, was away or on leave.
Born in Kodaikanal (Tamil Nadu, India), Gene grew up speaking Tamil and Telugu, but picked up Hindi while traveling and using archives in the north of India. Those were the days of NDEA Title VI money to study the non-West, so he had to deal with over a dozen obtuse grad students like me. However, his lectures, seminars, and dissertation guidance set an example of attentiveness and thoroughness. Summer language study finances involved deadlines and pleading applications (I knew Hindi, but Urdu and Persian suited my 18th-century interests, so my summers were spent at Chicago, Urbana, and Ann Arbor.). He was always there for us when we made typically last minute requests for recommendations.
Graduate students partied at his house, where he showed us the very small desk he used to write the first of his four books: Politics and Social Conflict in South India, the Non-Brahman Movement and Tamil Separatism, 1916-1929 (University of California Press, 1969), Tamil Revivalism in the 1930s (Crea Publications, 1986), Dialogue and History: Constructing South India, 1795-1895 (University of California Press, 1994), and A History of the New India (Routledge, 2015).
Gene always kept my focus on scholarship, even when it seemed more urgent to stop the Vietnam War. And he celebrated when I got a job, and then tenure at the University of Virginia. Once when we both were living in New Delhi, we had him and his then wife Ann over for dinner. Gene stepped into the dining room, but then suddenly dashed ahead of us to gather up displays of glassware, to keep Duncan, their two-year-old, from handling it. No yelling, no panic, just the tactful and nurturing parent. He carried this same spirit with him wherever he went.
Rest in peace, dear friend.
Prof. Richard Barnett
Associate Professor Emeritus
University of Virginia
Click HERE for a tribute written by Cathryn Carson, Professor and Chair of the Department of History
