Meenakshi Jain

Meenakshi Jain
Meenakshi Jain in 2025
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
Assumed office
21 July 2025
Nominated byDroupadi Murmu
Preceded byRakesh Sinha
ConstituencyNominated (Literature and Education)
Personal details
Born
Parent
RelativesSunil Jain (brother)
Sandhya Jain (sister)
Alma materUniversity of Delhi (PhD)
OccupationHistorian, Writer, Political scientist
Known forSati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing Colonial Discourse
AwardsPadma Shri (2020)

Meenakshi Jain is an Indian political scientist and historian who served as an associate professor of history at Gargi College, Delhi. Her areas of research include cultural and religious developments in medieval and early modern India. In 2014, she was nominated as a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research by the Government of India. In 2020, she was conferred with the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award, for her work in the field of literature and education.

Jain wrote Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing Colonial Discourse on the practice of Sati in colonial India and had also authored a school history textbook, Medieval India, for NCERT, which replaced a previous textbook co-authored by Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra et al.

Meenakshi Jain was nominated to Rajya Sabha by President Droupadi Murmu on 12 July 2025.