The History Department of Patna College is one of the few departments that had been started with the establishment of the college. Just as Akbar is called the real founder of the Mughal dynasty despite not being the first ruler of the Mughal dynasty, in the same way, McCrindle, who was the Principal for the longest period in the history of the college & considered as real founder of this college, was the first head of the History Department. Mr. McCrindle’s expertise was about Greek and Roman history, but the advantage of this expertise was that on the basis of the description of Indian history present in Greek and Roman travelogue & history, he proved that the city “Palibrotha” or “Palimborta” mentioned in Megasthene’s Indica is neither Allahabad nor any other city, but the present Patna. On the basis of the descriptions of Ptolemy and Megasthenes, he strengthened the writing of Indian history.

In the beginning of the 20th century, many great people joined the History Department, among whom Suvimal Chandra Sarkar and Jagdish Narayan Samaddar were important. Prof. Samaddar presented the glorious past of Magadha to the world for the first time. It was he who gave more archaeological importance than religious importance to the statue of Yakshini found in Didarganj and got it placed in the newly-built museum with the help of the then director D B Spooner. In the 1920s, medieval history in the department benefited a lot because during this time two such people joined it who rewrote history on the basis of Persian documents and revealed many new aspects. Among them, the names of Sir Jadunath Sarkar & Syed Hasan Askari can be taken with respect. Jadunath Sarkar was a unique historian in some respects who wrote on Shivaji and Aurangzeb simultaneously with full authority. Askari Saheb enriched the history of the Sufi traditions of Bihar in a great way and translated many Persian chronicles & documents.

When the Second World War ended in 1945 and Indian independence seemed imminent, the department also took a new step and many famous personalities joined it. Among them, Kalikinkar Dutt and Ramsharan Sharma were notable. While Prof. Dutt was a great scholar of modern history, Sharma ji made ancient India his field of writing. The postgraduate department was also started due to the efforts of these two. Earlier, other social subjects were taught under the history department, such as sociology, political science, economics and geography. All these departments were off-shoots of the history department. After Indian independence, all these departments separated from history and became independent departments.

One specialty of the history department was that its department heads were the most number of principals of this college and vice-chancellors of the university. Not only this, when other universities and colleges were established and it came to appointing vice-chancellors and principals there, people were appointed from this department. For example, Prof. Taraporewala (a Parsi teacher of World History) became the principal in Muzaffarpur and Prof. Dutt was made the founding vice-chancellor of Magadh University.

This department has always made intellectual interventions in history writing as well. In this series, Prof. Ramsharan Sharma gave a new direction to Marxist historiography, while on the other hand Prof. Dutt and Prof. J.N.Sarkar took nationalist historiography forward. Prof. Dutt was appointed by the Bihar government to write the history of the freedom movement and the 1857 revolution in Bihar. The people here also participated enthusiastically in the excavation of historical sites and helped in the excavation in Antichak and Chirand.

This department has produced many famous personalities, prominent among them are Kashi Prasad Jaiswal, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Chief Minister Shri Krishna Singh, Justice B P Sinha, one of the famous martyre & recepient of gallantary award, Police Officer Randhir Verma, Prof. Suvira Jaiswal, Prof. Dwijendra Narayan Jha, Prof. Ramlakhan Shukla etc.

The Department faced a huge gap (32 years) of appointment of permanent teachers that proved a major set back. It can be hoped that after the appointment of huge number of teacher in near future by the Government, there will be both qualitative and quantitative changes in the situation and the department will again touch its heights.

The Department of History provides traditional undergraduate Honours degree course in History. A large number of college students are associated with this department for their subsidiary subject. After the introduction of CBCS and NEP-2020, this department also provides MIC (Minor Course) and MDC (Multi-Disciplinary Course) courses to a large number of students. This department is the nodal department of VAC (Value Added Course), due to which all the students of the college have to come here to study.

Along with study and teaching, this department has been inviting teachers from educational institutions of Bihar and outside Bihar for guest lectures. Guest lectures of Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed in Medieval History, Prof. Daisy Narayan in Ancient History and Prof. Pramodananda Das in Modern History have been organized here. On the occasion of Partition Horrors Memorial Day, a related photo exhibition and seminar were organized here. On 21 August 2024, a lecture was organized on the topic of “Question of Identity in History” by Dr. Abhinav Sinha, a Marxist history writer and JNUite.

The department keeps conducting several capacity building programs for the future building of its students. In these programs, extempore speech, essay writing, poetry recitation, declamation, quiz, debate, photo exhibition, short story competition etc. have been organized. At the end of year, in the month of May, all contestants & winners are awarded by HoD & Principal with certificates & medals.