My first book presents a new paradigm for Indian diplomatic history by recovering the histories and legacies of ‘coolie’ migrants as foundational to diplomacy. Drawing on multi-archival research and multilingual sources spanning the vast geographies of indenture and labour migration from India to Ceylon, the Caribbean, and Britain, the book argues that Indian notions of the international realm were shaped by the prolific if ‘undesirable’ journeys of labourers and remained a space of anxiety defined by a caste-coded paranoia over the mobility of the coolie. Through such a framework, the book addresses the longstanding neglect of caste in Indian diplomatic history. Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy thereby provides a bottom-up approach to diplomatic studies and international relations that centres the experiences of migrants who have for far too long been simply regarded as ‘recipients’ and ‘problems’ of diplomacy. The book has been published by Hurst in the UK/EU in November 2025 and by Oxford University Press in North America in March 2026.
Available for order via Hurst, OUP (in the US), Bookshop.org, Amazon, Blackwells, Waterstones.
For more on the book, see these interviews:
CASI (Centre for the Advanced Study of India) Deep Dive – Interview with Rohan Venkat for CASI at the University of Pennsylvania
New Books Network podcast- in conversation with Stuti Roy
Imperial and Global Forum– book interview with CIGH, Exeter
Recent book talks:
28 January – Centre for Imperial and Global History and South Asia Centre, University of Exeter
18 February – Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Listen to a recording of the talk here.
20 February – The Belonging Lab, Columbia University
Kalathmika Natarajan 