Historian K. Sivasankaran Nair, who breathed his last recently, at the age of 96, was remembered by his friends and disciples at a meeting held in University College auditorium.
The function organised by Historia, the alumni of the Department of History, University College, to pay tribute to Sivasankaran Nair who had turned to history research after 36 years of service as engineer in the Public Works department.
Delivering the condolence speech, T.P. Sankarankutty Nair, former Professor of History and ex-Director General of the Centre for Heritage Studies, said Sivasankaran Nair had authored more than a dozen books in Malayalam on Venad history, Travancore history, Marthanda Varma, John Munro, Niehoff’s Kerala, trade and colonialism, Kerala history up to CE 1500 (Kerala University Publication) and Venad’s political history (Chintha Publication).
“Sivasankaran Nair showed uncommon fearlessness in telling the whole truth about historical developments. Nair always thought afresh about the existing historical accounts and presented new views or conclusions based on existing data or accounts available in books. His search for truth really made him a fearless historian”, observed Dr Nair.
The meeting also paid homage to the former Head of the Department of History and former Principal of Government Arts College, G. Krishnan Nadar, who was familiar to history students as the author of popular texts like those on historical method, historiography and military history of Travancore. Nadar died last week at the age of 81.
Robinson Jose, P. Johnson, R.N. Satyadas, Kavitha Teresa and Sasidharan Sadanandane also offered homage to the departed souls.
