He was the son of Prativa and Amiya Kumar Raychaudhuri, the last zamindar of Kirtipasha in Barisal district of eastern Bengal. He came from a well-known Baidya family. He was a nephew of Kiran Shankar Roy[3] and Hem Chandra Roychaudhuri, through his paternal aunts.[4]
He started his career as a lecturer at the Department of Islamic History and Culture, Calcutta University. After his return from Britain, he became a deputy director of the National Archives of India. He was a reader and then professor of history and director of the Delhi School of Economics and professor and the head of the department of history of Delhi University.[5]
He was a reader in modern South Asian history from 1973 to 1992 and then ad hominem professor of Indian history and civilization and fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford, from 1992 to 1993. He was an emeritus fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford, after retirement.[6] He also served on the inaugural Social Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2009.
He died at home in Oxford (England) on 26 November 2014, after suffering a stroke.[13]
Publications
Books
—— (1953). Bengal Under Akbar and Jahangir: An Introductory Study in Social History. Calcutta: A. Mukherjee & Co. OCLC906328391.
—— (1962). Jan Company in Coromandel, 1605-1690. 's-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff. OCLC450671.[14]
Raychaudhuri, Tapan; Habib, Irfan, eds. (1982). The Cambridge Economic History of India. Vol. I, c. 1200-c. 1750. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-22802-2.
—— (1988). Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions of the West in Nineteenth Century Bengal. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-562066-5.[15]
—— (1993). Romanthan Athoba Bhimrotiprapter Paracharitcharcha রোমন্থন অথবা ভীমরতিপ্রাপ্তর পরচরিতচর্চা (in Bengali). Kolkata: Ananda. ISBN978-8177563481.
—— (2005). Perceptions, Emotions, Sensibilities: Essays on India's Colonial and Post-colonial Experiences. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-567894-9.
^"Padma Awards"(PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2016. Archived from the original(PDF) on 15 October 2015. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
^Neale, Walter C. (February 1964). "Review". The Journal of Asian Studies. 23 (2). Association for Asian Studies: 318–320. doi:10.2307/2050166. JSTOR2050166.