Background

Margaret Chatterjee was born on September 13, 1925 in London, United Kingdom; the daughter of Edith (Hickman) Gantzer and Norman Gantzer. She spent most of her childhood in Dorset, but after the marriage she settled in Delhi.

Education

Chatterjee was educated by her father until the age of eight. She then studied at Parkstone Grammar School. In 1943 Margaret entered Somerville College, graduating it in 1946. In 1961, she earned her Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Delhi.

Career

Chatterjee began her career as a lecturer and reader at the University of Delhi in 1961. Sixteen years later she was appointed a professor of philosophy at the same university, where she worked until 1990.

From the 1960s onwards, Margaret published widely, at first on philosophical topics and then increasingly on aspects of the life and work of the Indian independence leader M. K. Gandhi. Her Philosophical Enquiries, published in 1968, was a classic work on philosophy and religious epistemology. One of her most provocative works was Gandhi and his Jewish Friends, published by Macmillan in 1999. She examined Gandhi’s correspondence with German-Jewish philosopher Martin Buber and found common ground between Buber’s prophetic spirit and Gandhi’s prophetic politics. Her denunciation of Gandhi came in the context of his not being able to understand the Jewish fear of annihilation in the face of Hitler’s genocide programme. In what was then perceived as iconoclastic, Margaret held him guilty of moral blindness.

Chatterjee travelled frequently, for conferences and as a visiting professor, to South Africa, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Israel. Chatterjee also held a position of director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study from 1986 to 1989.

Achievements

• A reputed philosopher and Gandhi scholar, Margaret Chatterjee was known for such her books as Philosophical Enquiries, Gandhi and his Jewish Friends and Gandhi’s Religious Thought. The latter established her reputation as a leading scholar in the field.

Works

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• book

  • Sketches and Conversations Recalled

    (In this book the author's recollections about people and ...)

    2010
  • Gandhi and the Challenge of Religious Diversity: Religious Pluralism Revisited

    (In this book the author relates Gandhi's response to the ...)

    2005
  • Studies in Modern Jewish and Hindu Thought

    (Chatterjee turns her attention to what happens when peopl...)

    1997
  • Between Friends : Letters Exchanging Ideas

    (The author's wide-ranging interests are expressed in a ne...)

    2011
  • Visiting Old Friends: A Study in Remembrance

    (In writing about some of her old friends, the author beli...)

    2012
  • Modalities of Otherness

    (A Sperpentining Tale of Enemies, Strangers, Neighdurs, Mo...)

    2010
  • Poems

    (There is a considerable diversity of theme in this collec...)

    2010
  • Between Friends: Letters Exchanging Ideas

    (Volume 3. This covers a wide range of issues, many of whi...)

    2012
  • Between Friends: Letters Exchanging Ideas

    (Volume 2. As in the earlier book with the title Between F...)

    2011
  • Lifeworlds and Ethics: Studies in Several Keys 2006
  • Gandhi's Religious Thought 1983
  • Inter-Religious Communication: A Gandhian Perspective 2009

Views

Margaret Chatterjee described her philosophical thought as a reaction not only to "the absorption of English-speaking philosophers with cognition" but also to "the atman-Brahman equation" that has dominated much Indian philosophy. A major concern of her work was to investigate the grounds of intersubjectivity and what she has seen as close but largely unrecognized relationships between the transcendental, the empirical and the ontological.

In aesthetics, she has drawn her attention to the frequently ignored differences of status between the perceptual objects that constitute works of art and to the concomitant differences between the "sensory cues" they provide. In the philosophy of religion she has focused on the analysis of the religious language of prayer and worship rather than on propositions such as "God exists".

Membership

Chatterjee was Vice-President of the International Society for Metaphysics and President of the History of Philosophy Section of All India Congress Committee.

Personality

Margaret Chatterjee was known for her rigorous scholarship, the cross-cultural breadth of which was awe-inspiring. The woman behind the scholarly persona was elusive and open by turns.

In addition to her teaching and writing career, Margaret was an excellent pianist, with extensive knowledge of western classical music. For many years Margaret was a music critic of the Indian English-language newspaper the "Statesman".

Interests

• music

• Writers

  Pablo Neruda, Boris Pasternak

Connections

In 1946, Margaret Chatterjee married Nripendra Nath Chatterjee. They have three children.

Father:

Norman Gantzer

Mother:

Edith (nee Hickman) Gantzer

child:

Malay Chatterjee

child:

Nilima Chatterjee

child:

Amala Chatterjee

husband:

Nripendra Nath Chatterjee

He was a professor of English in India.