Historian Bipan Chandra, an expert in economic and political history of India, died on Saturday morning after prolonged illness. He was 86. After the death of his wife four years ago, the veteran scholar had not been in the best of health. But, he still kept on writing till his last days.

“He had not been keeping well since last few months. He passed away at 6 am,” his family said. Despite his failing health, he managed to draft his autobiography and a biography of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh. “The drafts of the two books are almost ready and now they may be published posthumously,” said Aditya Mukherjee, his former student and later a colleague at JNU.

Author of In the Name of Democracy: The JP Movement and the Emergency, Chandra, had written on wide areas, including theory of colonialism, national movement, contemporary history and fights against communalism. Among his other works are The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism, Nationalism and Colonialism in Modern India, The Making of Modern India: From Marx to Gandhi and The Indian left: Critical Appraisal.

Born in 1928 in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, Chandra studied at the Forman Christian College, lahore, Stanford University, US and the University of Delhi. A Padma Bhushan awardee, Chandra had donned multiple roles, including that of chairperson of the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Member of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the chairman of the National Book Trust (NBT).

The left leaning author had also founded the journal Enquiry and was a member of its editorial board for a long time. Chandra’s textbooks on history have been part of the academic curriculum in schools and colleges. A nationalist historian who influenced a generation of students, he was quite a performer in the classroom with his distinctive style of teaching interspersed with wit and personal anecdotes. His admirers called his death, “passing away of an era of committed scholars who wrote not only for researchers but also for public.” Several leaders and scholars joined in paying tributes to the veteran historian.

“The PM expresses grief on the passing away of noted historian Bipan Chandra. He extends his condolences to Chandra’s family,” the PMO said on Twitter. Congress president Sonia and Rahul also condoled his death, hailing him an “erudite chronicler” of modern Indian history and the nation’s struggle for independence.