Research Areas | Department of History
Dr Maanvender Singh
"My research interrogates the judicial and constitutional epistemology of caste and carelessness before the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report, 1990. It also engages with the historical and philosophical foundation of the political discourse on caste and classlessness by locating a critique of modern-secular political discourse, which created a vital space for making wide-reaching claims over the idea of citizenship, equality, and justice. One of the key focus areas of my work is how the law operates as a discursive practice and as a text, where the legal application of logic is grounded in socially constructed narratives."
Dr Megha Yadav
"My research delves into the dynamics of religious processes during the Early Medieval Period of Indian History. Specifically, it explores the evolution of Buddhism through an examination of its textual and visual landscapes. Thereby, enquiring into the complexities of religious boundaries, interactions, exchanges, assimilations, and conflicts. A significant aspect of these inquiries is the scrutiny of gender relations, both in terms of societal practices and within mythological narratives.
Furthermore, the investigation extends to the formation of Tibetan Buddhism, probing into the methods of transmission, modes of acceptance, and the interactive processes between Buddhists and non-Buddhist Tibetan traditions."
Dr Lekshmi Chandran
"My area of specialisation is the social history of pre-colonial Kerala (which includes certain parts of the present-day state of Tamilnadu). The focus is on the everyday lives of the people in the region during pre-colonial times, to be specific familial relationships and the structure of households, both patrilineal and matrilineal. Thereby understanding the gender relations in society, how these are represented in the literary traditions, and the transformation and continuity of social institutions such as kinship and marriage practices in the region between the 9th to 17th Centuries."
Dr Aqsa Agha
"I have worked on the larger process of political transition in Eighteenth-Century India, with an emphasis on legitimacy, political culture, and gender relations in the state of Awadh. I have explored the harem as a crucible for a political transition in Awadh. Besides teaching and researching history, I am also interested in community engagement, observing, analysing and documenting processes at the grassroots using the Participatory Research method. My broader research interest lies in historical processes and their impact on the social locations of class, caste, and gender."
Know Them in Detail!
- Interrogation of the judicial and constitutional epistemology of caste and carelessness before the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report, 1990.
- Engages with the historical and philosophical foundation of the political discourse on caste and classlessness by locating a critique of modern-secular political discourse. This created a vital space for making wide-reaching claims over the idea of citizenship, equality, and justice.
- How the law operates as a discursive practice and as a text, where the legal application of logic is grounded in socially constructed narratives
- Focused on the rise of the Divine Feminine within the Tantric Buddhist tradition taking the case studies of the various goddesses, particularly emphasising upon the Goddess Prajñāpāramitā as the first Buddhist Goddess and the Goddess Tārā as the female Bodhisattva.
- Investigating the process of making of Tibetan Buddhism, the processes of interaction and transformations.
- Textual, philosophical, and visual transmission of Buddhism in the various parts of Asian subcontinent.
- Relationship between the diversity of attitudes in relation to the gender found in the various Mahayana and Tantric Buddhist literature.
- The role of the Historical context in the making of a divine cult and the contributions made by the cultural milieu of the time in the development of various facets of the cult such as the emergence of Corona Mātā in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic.
- The social history of pre-colonial Kerala (which includes certain parts of the present-day state of Tamilnadu).
- The everyday lives of the people in the region during pre-colonial times, to be specific familial relationships and the structure of households, both patrilineal and matrilineal.
- Gender relations in society, how these are represented in the literary traditions and the transformation and continuity of social institutions such as kinship and marriage practices in the region between the 9th to 17th Centuries.
- The intersection of caste and gender in pre-colonial Kerala society, how Brahmanicall patriarchy defines the norms and rules for women, and how it controls female sexuality, oppressive practices like breasts tax and exclusion of women from public spaces, representations of lower caste women and creation of binaries.
- Brahmanical temples, other religious institutions, and trade guilds to understand women's economic activities, their patronage of religious institutions, and vice versa.
- The relationship between the religious institution and the region's political economy essentially plays a vital role in shaping societal norms, inheritance patterns, and social hierarchies based on gender and caste.
- Exploration of the harem as a crucible for a political transition in Awadh.
- Historical processes and their impact on the social locations of class, caste, and gender.
- Issues of human trafficking/Human Trafficking in India
- Human rights violations on the India-Bangladesh Border in the state of West Bengal
