Bipan Chandra was an Indian historian, specialising in economic and political history of modern India. Professor of modern history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, he specialized on the Indian independence movement and is considered a leading scholar on Mahatma Gandhi. He authored several books, including The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism. He was born on 27 May 1928 in Kangra, Punjab, British India. He studied at Forman Christian College at Lahore. Then he continued at Stanford University of USA and at University of Delhi. He completed his Ph.D under the guidance of Professor Bishweshwar Prasad. He worked as a lecturer at Hindu College at Delhi and as the UGC National lecturer in 1973 to 1974. Before he became the professor of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University at New Delhi, he was the reader in the History Department of Delhi University. He was one of the members of the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU and helped in its establishment. He is the Emeritus professor at the CHS.

He served as the visiting professor of Colegio de Mexico. He was the General President of Indian History Congress in 1985. He started the journal Enquiry and was one of the members of its editorial board for quite a long time. The famous lectures that he chaired are Kosambi Memorial Lecture, K. P. Jayswant Memorial Lecture, V. D. Mahajan Memorial Lecture, Inaugural lecture of the first E. M. S. Namboodiripad Memorial Seminar and Heras Memorial Lecture. He is serving as the Chairman of the National Book Trust at New Delhi and the member of the University Grants Commission at New Delhi. He was appointed as National Research Professor in 2007, and awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honour, given by Government of India in 2010. Chandra died on the morning of 30 August 2014, at his home in Gurgaon, after prolonged illness, aged 86.