Prof. Dr. Ravi Ahuja

Principal Investigator

Email:
Ravi.Ahuja[at]phil.uni-goettingen.de

Address:
Waldweg 26
37073 Göttingen
Germany

Career

Ravi Ahuja is head of the research group ‘Modern Indian History’ at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies of Georg-August-University Göttingen.

Ravi Ahuja has worked on various aspects of India’s social history from 18th to 20th century including urban history, the history of infrastructure and the social history of war. His research interests have increasingly moved towards contemporary history. Current research projects examine the social history of South Asian seafarers and the emergence of a labour-centred social policy in mid-twentieth century India. After teaching at the South Asia Institute in Heidelberg and conducting research at the Centre for Modern Oriental Studies in Berlin he was appointed Professor of Modern South Asian History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. He joined CeMIS as its founding director in 2009.

Ravi Ahuja favours research-oriented modes of teaching. CeMIS’s Modern Indian History research group offers a broad spectrum of courses that reflects the vivid and diverse historiography on South Asian societies. Apart from historical survey courses for first-year undergraduate students, our teaching covers themes of social and economic history like urban history, gender history, the history of technology and medicine, the history of social movements or the social history of war.

CeMIS’s Modern Indian History section is highly research active with a strong emphasis on training research students. In order to provide a fertile research environment and facilitate intensive communication between the members of the research group, the ‘bandwidth’ of our research has been defined as comprising mainly the following major themes:

Labour history and history of work
History of capital(ism)
History of economic and social policy
Social history of industrial (urban as well as rural) space
History of infrastructure

Curriculum Vitae

2007 Habilitation, Humanities Faculty, University of Hannover; dissertation: ‘Pathways of Empire. Circulation, “Public Works” and Social Space in Colonial Orissa (c. 1780–1914)’; venia legendi for Modern History.

1998 ‘Grundständige Promotion’ (DPhil without preceding M.A.), Humanities Faculty, University of Heidelberg; magna cum laude; dissertation: ‘Die Erzeugung kolonialer Staatlichkeit und das Problem der Arbeit. Eine Studie zur Sozialgeschichte der Stadt Madras und ihres Hinterlandes zwischen 1750 und 1800’ [The making of a colonial state and the problem of labour. A study of the social history of Madras City and its hinterland, c. 1750–1800].

1991 — 1998 South Asian History, European History and Indology at Heidelberg University (1991–1993; 1995–1998) and School of Oriental and African Studies, London (1993–1995)

University Education

1991 — 1998 South Asian History, European History and Indology at Heidelberg University (1991–1993; 1995–1998) and School of Oriental and African Studies, London (1993–1995)

Occupational Career

2010 — 2012 Director, Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen

2009 Professor of Modern Indian History, University of Göttingen

2009 Offered the Professorship of Culture and Society of Modern South Asia at Humboldt-University, Berlin (declined)

2008 — 2009 Chair, Centre of South Asian Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London

2007 — 2009 Professor of Modern South Asian History, School of Oriental and African Studies, London

2006 — 2007 Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin. Research programme ‘World Wars and World Views: Arabic and Indian War Experiences between Self-willed Appropriation and Propaganda’, project on Indian prisoners of war in Germany during World War I.

2002 — 2006 ‘Wissenschaftlicher Assistent’ (Assistant Professor), Department of History, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg

2001 — 2002 Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin. Research programme ‘The Indian Ocean ? spaces and movements’, project on ‘maritime work culture and British colonialism in the Indian Ocean’.

1999 — 2001 Senior Research Fellow, Institute for African and Asian Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin. Project on ‘pathways of power: the social history of transport in colonial Orissa’ as part of the German Research Council’s Orissa Research Programme

1998 — 1999 Research Assistant, Department of History, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg

1991 — 1998 University education (see above)

1989 — 1991 Typesetter, Eschborn (Germany)

1985 — 1989 Youth work, Frankfurt/Main

1980 — 1985 Vocational training and employment as typesetter, Frankfurt/Main

1979 Abitur (university entrance diploma), Eichwald Gymnasium, Schwalbach a. Ts. (West Germany)

Organisation of Conferences, Workshops, Panels and Summer Schools

International Summer Academy ‘Working Lives in Global History’ (in co-operation with IGK Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History [Humboldt University Berlin]

V. V. Giri National Labour Institute [NOIDA/Delhi, India] and Association of Indian Labour Historians), NOIDA, 2–9 October 2011.

International Workshop ‘The Politics of Poverty and the Politics of the Poor in Modern India’, Göttingen, 6–8 July 2011.

International Workshop ‘Space, Capital and Social History in Modern South Asia’, Centre for Modern Indian Studies, Göttingen, 24–26 June 2010.

International Workshop ‘South Asian Experiences of the World Wars: New Evidence and New Approaches’, German Historical Institute, London, 26 May 2009 (with Indra Sengupta; jointly organized by SOAS, German Historical Institute and Centre for Modern Oriental Studies).

International Workshop ‘The World in World Wars. Experiences, Perceptions and Perspectives from the South’, Centre for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin, 7–9 June 2007 (with K. Bromber, D. Hamza, K. Lange und H. Liebau).

Panel ‘Empires, Nationalisms and the Containment of Labour in South Asia: Historical and Contemporary Issues’, 18th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Lund, 6–9 July 2004 (with Ben Zachariah).

International Workshop ‘Exploring Indian Ocean Cultures and Histories’, St. Cross College, University of Oxford, 26 April 2003 (with J.-G. Deutsch et al.)

Panel ‘South Asian Society, British Colonialism and the Emergence of “Subaltern Networks” in the Indian Ocean Region’, 17th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Heidelberg, 9–14 September 2002 (with H. Fischer-Tiné)

Panel ‘Colonialism as Civilizing Mission ? The Case of British India’, International Conference of Asian Studies (ICAS), Berlin, 9–12 August 2001 (with H. Fischer-Tiné).

Workshop ‘Perspectives on the Indian Ocean’, Zentrum Modener Orient, Berlin, 14- 16 July 2000 (with J.-G. Deutsch et al.).

External Roles and Memberships

German Historical Institute, London, advisory board member (2011-).

Journal of Global History; editorial board (2010-).

International Review of Social History; editorial board (2009-).

Forum Transnationale Studien, Berlin, advisory board member (2009-) European Association of South Asian Studies.

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Asienkunde Freundeskreis des Zentrums Moderner Orient

Association of Indian Labour Historians; life member

Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit, Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2005–2012 (co-editor in the area ‘global interaction’ for South Asia) [Encyclopaedia of Modern History].

External reviewer for several refereed journals (Modern Asian Studies, South Asia, Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient) and funding agencies (German Research Council/DFG, VolkswagenStiftung, Schweizer Nationalfonds).

External PhD examiner for several universities (Humboldt-University Berlin, Jacobs University Bremen, Goldsmiths College [University of London], School of Oriental and African Studies [University of London], Jawaharlal Nehru University [New Delhi], University of Delhi).

Publications

MONOGRAPHS

Shipping Lords and Coolie Stokers: Class, Race, and Maritime Capitalism in the Early 20th Century. London/New York: Verso, 2024(forthcoming).

Pathways of Empire. Circulation, ‘Public Works’ and Social Space in Colonial Orissa (c. 1780–1914) (in: New Perspectives in South Asian History), Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2009.

Arbeit und Kolonialherrschaft in Indien, 1750–1947, Hagen: Fernuniversität, 2001 (Open University Reader, 264 S.).

Die Erzeugung kolonialer Staatlichkeit und das Problem der Arbeit. Eine Studie zur Sozialgeschichte der Stadt Madras und ihres Hinterlandes zwischen 1750 und 1800 (= Beiträge zur Südasienforschung 183), Stuttgart: Franz-Steiner-Verlag, 1999.

EDITIONS

India’s Forces of Labour and the Limits of Democratization: An Exploratory Compendium (in preparation).

with Marcel van der Linden and Anna Sailer: „The Distress is Impossible to Convey.“ British and German Trade-Union Reports on Labour in India (1926–1928), Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020.

with Martin Christof-Füchsle: A Great War in South India. German Accounts of the Anglo-Mysore Wars, 1766–1799, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019.

with Franziska Roy and Heike Liebau: Soldat Ram Singh und der Kaiser. Indische Kriegsgefangene in deutschen Propagandalagern, 1914 — 1918, Heidelberg: Draupadi Verlag, 2014 [translated and revised version of „When the War Began…“, 2011].

Working Lives and Worker Militancy: The Politics of Labour in Colonial India, Delhi: Tulika, 2013.

with Franziska Roy and Heike Liebau: „When the War Began, We Heard of Several Kings.“ South Asian Prisoners in World War I Germany, Delhi: Social Science Press, 2011.

with Katrin Bromber, Dyala Hamzah, Heike Liebau and Katharina Lange: The World in World Wars. Experiences, Perceptions and Perspectives from the South, Leiden: Brill, 2010.

with Christiane Brosius: Mumbai – Delhi – Kolkata. Annäherungen an die Megastädte Indiens, Heidelberg: Draupadi, 2006.

ARTICLES IN JOURNALS

“Ramchandra Babaji More, Amir Haider Khan and the Genres of Working-Class Biography: A Comment,” South Asia, 44,2 (2021), pp. 398–401.

“In Place of an Afterword: On Analyzing ‘Entanglements’ in ‘Interesting Times’,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (Special Issue: „Minor Cosmopolitanisms“) (2020), pp. 322–8.

“ ‘Produce or Perish’. The Crisis of the Late 1940s and the Place of Labour in Postcolonial India,” Modern Asian Studies 54,4 (2020), pp. 1041-112.

“A Beveridge Plan for India? Social Insurance and the Making of the ‘Formal Sector’,” International Review of Social History 64,2 (2019), pp. 207–48.

“Authoritarian Shadows: Indian Independence and the Problem of Democratisation,” Südasien-Chronik 7 (2017), pp. 179–200 [also published in Social Scientist 46,5–6 (2018), pp. 3–20].

“Autoritäre Schatten. Indiens Unabhängigkeit und das Problem der Demokratisierung,” VHD Journal 6 (2017), pp. 56–73.

“Zwischen Forschungsfreiheit und ‘verletzten Gefühlen’: von den Leistungen und Mühen indischer Geschichtswissenschaft,” VHD Journal 5 (2016), S. 61–5.

“Informalisierung und Arbeitskämpfe in Indien. Eine zeithistorische Perspektive auf die Gegenwart,” WSI-Mitteilungen, 5/2014, pp. 353–60.

“Capital at Sea, Shaitan Below Decks? A Note on Global Narratives, Narrow Spaces, and the Limits of Experience,” History of the Present 2,1 (2012), pp. 78–85.

“Die ‘Lenksamkeit’ des ‘Lascars’. Regulierungsszenarien eines transterritorialen Arbeitsmarktes in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 31,3 (2005), pp. 323–53.

“ ‘Opening up the Country’? Orissan Society and Early Colonial Communications Policies (1803–1866),” Studies in History (new series), 20,1 (2004), pp. 73–130.

“State Formation and ‘Famine Policy’ in Early Colonial South India,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 39,4 (2002), pp. 351–80 [reprinted in Land, Politics and Trade in South Asia, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ed. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004)].

“Labour Relations in an Early Colonial Context: Madras, 1750–1800,” Modern Asian Studies 36,4 (2002), pp. 793–826.

“Expropriating the Poor: Urban Land Control and Colonial Administration in Late Eighteenth-Century Madras City,” Studies in History (new series) 17,1 (2001), pp. 81–99.

“The Origins of Colonial Labour Policy in Late Eighteenth-Century Madras,” International Review of Social History, 44,2 (1999), pp. 159–95.

“Labour Unsettled. Mobility and Protest in the Madras Region, 1750–1800,” Indian Economic and Social History Review, 35,4 (1998), pp. 381–404.

ARTICLES IN EDITIONS

“Industrial ‘Cyclopes’ and ‘Native’ Stokers: British Steamshipping and the Attractions of ‘Racial Management’ (c. 1880–1930).” In Power at Work. Control and Resistance in Heteronomous Labour Relations edited by Marcel van der Linden and Nicole Mayer-Ahuja (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2023), pp. 211–37.

“Disruptive Entanglements: South Asia and South Asians in World Wars.” In Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia edited by Harald Fischer-Tiné and Maria Framke (London: Routledge, 2021), pp. 474–85.

“Minoritarian Labour Welfare in India: The Case of the Employees’ State Insurance Act of 1948.” In One Hundred Years of Social Protection: The Changing Social Question in Brazil, India, China, and South Africa edited by Lutz Leisering (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), pp. 157–88.

“Asian Industrialism, Labour Movements and Cultural Nationalism: Interwar Contexts of German Trade-Union Writings on ‘Working India’.” In “The Distress is Impossible to Convey.” British and German Trade-Union Reports on Labour in India (1926–1928) edited by Marcel van der Linden, Anna Sailer and Ravi Ahuja (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020), pp. 246–72.

“Foreword: On Entering Perlin’s Babel.” In City Intelligible. A Philosophical and Historical Anthropology of Global Commoditisation before Industrialisation, Frank Perlin (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. XVII–XXIV.

“Bharat ke lie Beveridge yojana? Samajik bima aur aupacarik kshetr ka nirman.” In Shram sambandh aur samajik suraksha. Ek sankalan edited by Lokesh (New Delhi: Centre for Education and Communication, 2020), pp. 28–67 [translation of „A Beveridge Plan for India?“].

“Introduction: A Great War in South India and its German Sources.” In A Great War in South India. German Accounts of the Anglo-Mysore Wars, 1766–1799 edited by Ravi Ahuja and Martin Christof-Füchsle (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), pp. 1–16.

“A Crisis Disremembered: Towards a Social History of War in Eighteenth-Century South India.” In A Great War in South India. German Accounts of the Anglo-Mysore Wars, 1766–1799 edited by Ravi Ahuja and Martin Christof-Füchsle (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), pp. 55–78.

“The Similar Yields Divergence: Global Notions of ‘Social Welfare’ and the Making of ‘Informality’ in Twentieth-Century India.” In Similarity. A Paradigm for Culture Theory edited by Anil Bhatti und Dorothee Kimmich (New Delhi: Tulika, 2018), pp. 311–33.

“Vergessene Konfrontationen. Südasiatische Soldaten in deutscher Kriegsgefangenschaft, 1915–1918.” In Soldat Ram Singh und der Kaiser. Indische Kriegsgefangene in deutschen Propagandalagern, 1914 — 1918 edited by Franziska Roy, Heike Liebau and Ravi Ahuja (Heidelberg: Draupadi Verlag, 2014), pp. 27–68 [translated, revised and extended version of „Lost Engagements,“ 2011].

“Das Ähnliche speist den Unterschied: Die globale Wohlfahrtsdebatte und die Erzeugung ‘informeller Arbeit’ im Indien des 20. Jahrhunderts.” In Arbeitspolitiken in globaler Perspektive: Informalität und Prekarisierung als Herausforderung edited by Hans-Jürgen Burchardt, Stefan Peters and Nico Weinmann (Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 2013), pp. 123–48.

“Preface.” In Working Lives and Worker Militancy: The Politics of Labour in Colonial India edited by Ravi Ahuja (Delhi: Tulika, 2013), pp. IX–XVI.

“A Freedom Still Enmeshed in Servitude. The Unruly ‘Lascars’ of the S.S. City of Manila or, a Micro-History of the ‘Free Labour’ Problem.” In Working Lives and Worker Militancy: The Politics of Labour in Colonial India edited by Ravi Ahuja (Delhi: Tulika, 2013), pp. 97–133.

“The Age of the Lascar. South Asian Seafarers in the Times of Imperial Steam Shipping.” In Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora edited by Joya Chatterji und David Washbrook (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 110–22.

“Lost Engagements? Traces of South Asian Soldiers in German Captivity, 1915–18.” In “When the War Began, We Heard of Several Kings.” South Asian Prisoners in World War I Germany edited by Franziska Roy, Heike Liebau and Ravi Ahuja (Delhi: Social Science Press, 2011), pp. 131–66.

“The Corrosiveness of Comparison: Reverberations of Indian Wartime Experiences in German Prison Camps (1915–19).” In The World in World Wars. Experiences, Perceptions and Perspectives from the South edited by Katrin Bromber, Dyala Hamzah, Heike Liebau, Katharina Lange and Ravi Ahuja (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 131–66.

“Netzwerke und Arbeitsmärkte: Annäherungen an ein Problem transterritorialer Arbeitsgeschichte.” In Transnational Networks in the 20th Century. Ideas and Practices, Individuals and Organisations (= ITH Conference Proceedings, vol. 42) edited by Berthold Unfried, Jürgen Mittag, Marcel van der Linden and Eva Himmelstoss (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 2008), pp. 99–109.

“Networks of Subordination – Networks of the Subordinated. The Case of South Asian Maritime Labour under British Imperialism (c. 1890–1947).” In Spaces of Disorder. The Limits of British Colonial Control in South Asia and the Indian Ocean edited by Harald Fischer-Tiné und Ashwini Tambe (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 13–48.

“ ‘Captain Kittoe’s Road’. Early Colonialism and the Politics of Road Construction in Nineteenth-Century Peripheral Orissa.” In Periphery and Centre in Orissa: Groups, Categories, Values edited by Georg Pfeffer (New Delhi: Manohar, 2007), pp. 291–318.

“Mobility and Containment: The Voyages of South Asian Seamen, c. 1900–1960.” In Coolies, Capital and Colonialism: Studies in Indian Labour History (= International Review of Social History 51, supplement 14 (2006)) edited by Rana P. Behal and Marcel van der Linden, pp. 111–41.

“Das Dickicht indischer Megastädte. Eine Annäherung.” In Mumbai – Delhi – Kolkata. Annäherungen an die Megastädte Indiens edited by Ravi Ahuja and Christiane Brosius (Heidelberg: Draupadi, 2006), pp. 7–15 [reprinted in: archplus 185: Indischer Inselurbanismus (2007), pp. 38–40].

“Erkenntnisdruck und Denkbarrieren: Anmerkungen zur indischen Arbeitshistoriographie.” In Konfigurationen der Moderne. Diskurse zu Indien (= Soziale Welt, Sonderband 15) edited by Shalini Randeria, Martin Fuchs and Antje Linkenbach (Baden Baden: Nomos, 2004), pp. 349–66 [also published in the Hungarian language: “Az indiai munkásmozgalom történetének margójára,” Ezmélet, 62 (2004)].

“Lateinsegel und Dampfturbinen. Der Schiffsverkehr des Indischen Ozeans im Zeitalter des Imperialismus.” In Der Indische Ozean. Das afro-asiatische Mittelmeer als Kultur- und Wirtschaftsraum edited by Dietmar Rothermund and Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik (Wien: Promedia, 2004), pp. 207–25.

“ ‘The Bridge-Builders.’ Some Notes on Railways, Pilgrimage and the British ‘Civilising Mission’ in Colonial India.” In Colonialism as Civilizing Mission. The Case of British India edited by Harald Fischer-Tiné and Michael Mann (London: Anthem Press, 2003), pp. 195–216.

“Arbeit und Kolonialherrschaft im neuzeitlichen Südasien: Eine Einführung.” In Südasien in der “Neuzeit”. Geschichte und Gesellschaft 1500 – 2000 (= Weltregionen 5) edited by Karin Preisendanz and Dietmar Rothermund (Wien: Promedia, 2003), pp. 194–211.

“Subaltern Networks under British Imperialism. Exploring the Case of South Asian Maritime Labour (c. 1890–1947).” In Space on the Move. Transformations of an Indian Ocean Seascape in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries edited by Jan-Georg Deutsch and Brigitte Reinwald (Berlin: Klaus Schwarze Verlag, 2002), pp. 39–60.

“Geschichte der Arbeit jenseits des kulturalistischen Paradigmas. Vier Anregungen aus der Südasienforschung.” In Geschichte und Zukunft der Arbeit edited by Jürgen Kocka and Claus Offe (Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus, 2000), pp. 121–34.

“Unterwegs zur Kolonialmetropole: Madras in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts.” In Periplus 1996, Jahrbuch für außereuropäische Geschichte edited by Dietmar Rothermund, pp. 61–75.