Prof. TK Oommen was the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Gujarat Harmony Project, which was formed after the communal violence of 2002. File | Photo credit: The Hindu
Eminent sociologist and professor emeritus of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Center for Social Systems Studies, TK Oommen, who is considered 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 gained much attention for his study of the Bhoodan Movement and as the chairman of the advisory committee of the Gujarat Harmony Project, which was formed after communal violence in the state in 2002.
Prof. Oommen was a past 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 the Indian Muslim community.
His main areas of interest included social movements and social transformation, political sociology, professions and social theory. For Professor Oommen, sociology was never just a collection of abstract theories, but a scientific tool to grasp the pulse of a society in constant transformation, said Antony Palackal, former professor and head of the Department of Sociology, University of Kerala. Prof. Oommen placed Indian sociology firmly on the global intellectual map, he said.
Five main domains
“His scholarship covered five main areas. First, he explored social movements and their transformative potential, beginning with the study of the Bhoodan Movement. Second, in the sociology of occupations, his study of the nursing profession (1978) was groundbreaking and brought attention to socially undervalued, yet indispensable occupations. Third, in his work on ‘The Most Remarkable, the Most Prospective, Ethnic’ A New Framework for Analyzing Social Security in Context of communal violence and ethnic conflict in India He explored the complex relationship between the state and civil society and explored how modern nation-states confront dissent and pluralism.
Prof. Oommen was born on 16 October 1937 to KM Koshy and Saramma Koshy in Venmony, Alappuzha, which was then part of Travancore. He received a BA in Economics from the University of Kerala in 1957 and an MA in Sociology from the University of Poona (since renamed Savitribai Phule Pune University) in 1960. For his PhD (in Sociology at the University of Poona) 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. He was Associate Professor at the Center for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS) at JNU from 1971–1976 and Professor of Sociology at the Center from 1976–2002. He has been a professor emeritus at JNU since 2007.
Prof. Ooommen described “his own ‘pluralist’ stance, advocating theoretical eclecticism with an emphasis on historical differences and the reconciliation of national and basic humanistic values, ‘alien’ and ‘indigenous,'” ISA noted in a biography of Prof. Oommena on their website.
Prof. The author of around 20 books and numerous articles, Oommen has also been the recipient of a number of prestigious awards and recognitions, including the Padma Bhushan in 2008. He is the recipient of the VKRV Rao Award in Sociology, the GS Ghurye Award in Sociology and Social Anthropology and the UGC’s Swami.Swami Award.
Published – 26 Feb 2026 21:35 IST
