Date of Birth

:

14 September 1948

Education

:

B.A., St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, 1968 (History Honours).

M.A., St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, 1970 (History).

Ph.D., University of Cambridge (1978)

Scholarships, Fellowships
and Appointments etc.

:

1970 – Appointed Lecturer in History, St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.

1973 – Awarded Commonwealth Scholarship for Doctoral Research at the University of Cambridge.

1980 – Appointed Reader in Modern Indian History, University of Hyderabad.

1981 – Appointed Reader in Modern History, University of Delhi.

1982-83 – Awarded Fellowship at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

Elected to the Smut’s Visiting Fellowship in Commonwealth Studies at the University of Cambridge for the academical year 1983-84.

1985 – Invited as Visiting Professor of Indian History for the Fall Semester, 1985, at the University of Iowa: Unable to accept because leave of absence from Nehru Memorial not possible.

1989 – Appointed Editor-Coordinator, ‘Towards Freedom’ Project, Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi.

1993 – Invited as Visiting Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla, October-November 1993. Unable to accept owing to commitment to the ICHR project.

2001 – Appointed Professor of Modern Indian History, University of Delhi. 

2005 – Nominated as a Member of the Council, ICHR.

2010 – Head, Department of History, University of Delhi.

2011 – Appointed Chairman, ICHR.

Teaching Experience

:

1970-78 – Taught course in Modern Indian History to B.A. Honours students at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

Supervised undergraduates at the University of Cambridge.

1978-83 – Taught Courses on Modern Indian History and Far Eastern History to B.A. Honours students at St. Stephen’s College; Economic History of Britain 1750-1850, part of course in British History 1850-1945, Economic History of India 1850-1914, Imperialism and Nationalism in India, to M.A. Students at the Universities of Hyderabad and Delhi.

:

1987-88 – Invited by the History Department, University of Delhi, to teach part of a course on ‘Society and Economy in India, 1750-1850’.

2001 – Taught British History 1815-1914, part of course in Imperialism and Nationalism; Society and Economy in India 1750-1850; Early Nationalism 1870-1917 and Political, Social and Economic Thought of Mahatma Gandhi.

Publications

Books, Research Papers and Articles:

Book

:

Trade, Tariffs and Empire: Lancashire and British Policy in India 1919-1939 (OUP, Delhi, 1992).

Towards Freedom: 1938 (ed.) Three volumes of documents on Indian politics, economy and society in 1938 with a General Introduction, Chapter introductions and notes (OUP / ICHR, 1999).

(General Editor, along with C.A. Bayly, Romila Thapar etal. of ‘Themes in Indian History’, a series published by OUP, Delhi. Over ten volumes were published between 1992 and 2001).

Articles

:

‘The Abolition of the Cotton Excise, 1925: A Study in Imperial Priorities’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XVII, No. 4 (1980).

‘Business and Politics in the 1930s: Lancashire and the Making of the Indo-British Trade Agreement, 1939’ in C. Baker, G. Johnson and A. Seal (eds.) Power, Profit and Politics, Special Issue of Modern Asian Studies (In Memoriam - John Andrew Gallagher), Vol. 15, Part 3 (1981).

‘The Political Economy of “Discriminating Protection”, The case of textiles in the 1920s’. The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XX, No. 3 (1983).

Reprinted in D.N. Panigrahi (ed.) Economy, Society and Politics in Modern India (Delhi, 1986).

Review Article on Princely India in Seminar, November 1997.

Research papers presented at Seminar and selected special Lectures (1984-2010)

:

‘The Texture of Indian Nationalism – An Historical Reading of Ananda Math’. Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, March 1984.

‘The Social-Cultural context of early Indian Nationalism’ Conference on the History of the Indian National Congress held at the University of California, Los Angeles, March 1984.

Commentator on paper by Irfan Habib ‘Studying a Colonial Economy – Without Perceiving Colonialism’, Conference on Indian Economic and Social History, specifically to review the two volume Cambridge Economic History of India, Cambridge, April, 1984.

‘Religion and Aspects of Indian Nationalism’, Conference on Religion and Society, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, April 1985.

‘History text books and the teaching of History in Schools and College in India’ – Workshop organized by Ekalavya (an organization engaged in experiments with new ways of teaching natural and human sciences in schools in Madhya Pradesh) and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, April 1986.

‘The East India Company and the “Taming” of the Bhils in Central India, 1818-1857’, presented at the third Cambridge – Delhi – Leiden – Yogyakarta Conference on the Comparative Study of India and Indonesia, September, 1986.

‘The State of Indian Historiography: Problems and Possibilities’, Kosambi Memorial Lecture, Kosambi Research Institute in Social Sciences, New Delhi, 31 July 1987, (NMML).

‘ “Theory” and Historical Narrative’, Workshop on Recent Development in Theory, American Studies Research Centre, Hyderabad, 5 January 1988.

‘Recent Trends in Historiography’, Workshop on Recent Development in Theory, American Studies Research Centre, Hyderabad, 8 January 1988.

‘The “Faculty” of History: The Past and its relationship to the Present’, Special Lectures, Punjab University, Chandigarh, 18 February 1988.

‘An agenda for socio-cultural historians in India today’, Seminar on ‘New History’, organized by the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in collaboration with the Cultural and Scientific Service of the Embassy of France, the British Council, the Italian Cultural Centre and the India International Centre, 24-26 February 1988.

‘Intellectual Roots of Ram Mohun Roy’s Thought’; ‘The “Young-Bengal” Movement’, Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, April, 1990.

‘Historical Imagination’, National School of Drama, Delhi, Orientation Course, July 1996.

‘Aims of Education, with apologies to Professor Whitehead’, Society for the Social Study of Education, National Institute of Adult Education, January 1997.

‘Reading History at the University’, Keynote Address, ‘History Day’, Ramjas College, Delhi, February 1998.

Annual Function, I.P. College, University of Delhi, March 2002.

‘History in the Class Room’, Keynote Address to UGC’s sponsored seminar, Khalsa College, University of Delhi, November 2010.

(Some of these are proposed to be included in book of essays).

Ongoing Research

:

Aspects of Intellectual History in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in India; The Philosophy and Practice of History.  

In preparation: A Book of Essays, pulling together diverse areas of research carried out over the years. These are being reworked and readied for publication.