OBITUARY
Jim Masselos, 1940-2025
As many of you may already know, Jim Masselos passed away after a short illness in Sydney on 24 June, 2025. Jim was an outstanding scholar of South Asia, and one of the key figures behind SASA in the 1980s. Jim served as its President for many years and was a key figure in enlivening the study of the subcontinent in Australia. The National Library of Australia recently accepted a donation of SASA papers that Jim had collected over many years to its archival collection, in recognition of the important work done by the association in supporting Asian Studies in the country. Jim was a regular author, reviewer, and editorial member for South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. A prolific writer and a keen commentator on social and political history of Mumbai, Jim was also aesthete and collected over his many years in India a unique collection of art, photography, and ephemera which he used to enliven his classes at the University of Sydney, where he taught in the Department of History for many decades. His significant art collection, which he named after his home, the Portvale Collection, was donated to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and forms a major part of its South Asian collection.
Jim inspired many students during his time at the University of Sydney and as SASA President, and was a regular visitor to, and insightful observer of, Mumbai. He has been heavily mourned in the city to which he first travelled as a PhD student, in 1961. Jim was a friend, and a gentle and constructive interlocutor and guide to countless South Asian scholars. His method was to walk and to observe — he never drove a car, to my knowledge — and it was through walking in his beloved Bombay and in Sydney that he imbibed much, and interacted with many. Jim’s legacy has resounded throughout Mumbai and in Sydney in the weeks since his passing. He has been eulogised in Indian newspapers (some links are included below) and will be celebrated at the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, where he used to sit and read newspapers while forming his ideas on the social and political life of the grand city, on 16 July, at 5pm, in the Durbar Hall.
For Australian friends and admirers, there will be a memorial at the University of Sydney, on Friday, 8 August 2025, 3-5 pm in the Auditorium, Chau Chak Wing Museum, organised by his colleagues from the History Department.
Rest well, Jim; you will be greatly missed.
Kama Maclean
South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg
Sydney Memorial
Friday, 8 August 2025, 3–5 pm
Auditorium, Chau Chak Wing Museum
The University of Sydney
Obituaries in the media
Hasnain Naqvi: https://thewire.in/culture/historian-jim-masselos-1939-2025-wove-mumbais-stories-into-a-tapestry-of-empathy-and-insight
Sujata Patel: https://thewire.in/history/remembering-jim-masselos-a-historian-with-a-unique-sensibility
Rachel Dwyer: https://thewire.in/history/remembering-jim-masselos-the-australian-scholar-of-bombays-social-history