T.K. Oommen, a leading architect of modern Indian sociology, passes away

Eminent sociologist and Professor Emeritus at the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s (JNU) Centre for the Study of Social Systems, T.K. Oommen, who is regarded as a leading architect of modern Indian sociology, passed away on Thursday (February 26, 2026). He was 88 and his end came in Gurugram.

A highly respected scholar, teacher and author, Prof. Oommen is known for his writings and approaches to social justice, identity and pluralism. He had gained wide attention for his study of the Bhoodan Movement and as chairperson of the Advisory Committee of the Gujarat Harmony Project, formed after the 2002 communal violence in the State.

Prof. Oommen was a former president of the International Sociological Association (ISA) and the Indian Sociological Society and a member of the Sachar Committee, which studied the social, economic and educational status of India’s Muslim community.

His main areas of interest included social movements and social transformations, political sociology, professions and social theory. For Prof. Oommen, sociology was never a mere assemblage of abstract theories but a scientific instrument to grasp the pulse of a society in constant transition, Antony Palackal, former professor and head, Department of Sociology, University of Kerala, said. Prof. Oommen placed Indian sociology firmly on the global intellectual map, he said.

Five major domains

“His scholarship spanned five major domains. First, he examined social movements and their transformative potential, beginning with his study of the Bhoodan Movement. Second, in the Sociology of occupation, his study of the nursing profession (1978) was pioneering, bringing attention to socially undervalued yet indispensable occupations. Third, in his work on State and ethnicity, most notably in ‘Understanding Security: A New Perspective’, he offered a novel framework for analysing social security in the context of communal violence and ethnic conflict in India. He interrogated the complex relationship between State and civil society and explored how modern nation-states confront dissent and pluralism. Throughout, he argued that sociology is not an isolated discipline but one intrinsically connected to history, politics, and culture,” Dr. Palackal said.

Prof. Oommen was born on October 16, 1937, to K.M. Koshy and Saramma Koshy in Venmony, Alappuzha, which was then part of Travancore. He secured his BA in Economics from the University of Kerala in 1957 and a master’s in Sociology from Poona University (since renamed Savitribai Phule Pune University) in 1960. For his PhD (in Sociology from Poona University), his thesis was on ‘Charisma, stability and change: an analysis of the Bhoodan-Gramdan movement in India.’ From 1964 to 1971, he taught at the Delhi School of Social Work, Delhi University. From 1971 to 1976, he was associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS) in JNU and from 1976 to 2002, he was professor of sociology at the centre. He has been Professor Emeritus at JNU from 2007 onwards.

Prof. Ooommen described “his own position ‘pluralist,’ advocating theoretical eclecticism with attention to historical diversities, and reconciliation of national and basic humanist values, the ‘alien’ and the ‘indigenous’,” the ISA has noted in Prof. Oommen’s biography on its website.

An author of around 20 books and numerous articles, Prof. Oommen was also a recipient of a clutch of prestigious awards and accolades, including the Padma Bhushan in 2008. He is a recipient of the V.K.R.V. Rao prize in Sociology, the G.S. Ghurye prize in Sociology and Social Anthropology, and the UGC’s Swami Pranavananda Award in Sociology.