Research

My research is shaped by two intertwined areas of focus- histories of South Asian migration and mobility; and bottom-up approaches to diplomacy and IR, with a particular emphasis on caste. My first book, Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy, brings together these interests. With Pavan Kumar and Vineet Thakur, I have co-edited a first of its kind special issue on ‘Caste in Indian Diplomacy and International Relations’ for the Hague Journal of Diplomacy, published in September 2025.  For a list of selected publications, click here.

I am currently working on two projects :

First, a collaborative, interdisciplinary project titled ‘Global History of Repatriation: Migration, Mobility, and the Spectre of ‘Return’ across the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean‘. This project moves beyond the dominant focus on (e)migration to foreground prolific histories of repatriation and ‘return’ across South Asia, South-east Asia, South Africa, Guyana, and Fiji through the late colonial and early postcolonial periods (1871-1973).

The second is a book tentatively titled Caste at Bay that explores anti-caste movements and mobilities across the Bay of Bengal. Drawing on a range of literary, cinematic, and archival sources in Tamil and English and tracing the mobilities of performers, diplomats, journalists and activists, I examine histories of caste, migration, and resistance that intertwine Madras, Ceylon, Malaya, and Burma.