Research Interests:

Indian social, cultural, economic and religious history; History of Islam and Indo-Persianite traditions in India; 18th century & the 'transition to colonialism'; Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism; Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal; World history

Recent Publications:

Missionary Education and Empire in Late Colonial India, 1860-1920 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2007).

Review of Sanjay Seth, 'Educating subjects: The western education of colonial India', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, June 2009.

‘Missionary Education, Religion and Knowledge in India, c. 1880-1915’, Modern Asian Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 41:2, March 2007, pp. 373-398.

Book review of Manu Bhagavan, ‘Sovereign Spheres: Princes, Education and Empire in colonial India’, in Journal of the Oxford University History Society (Oxford) 2005

Current research:

Currently I am working on a book which explores 18^th and early 19^th century India, examining the transition between the Mughal and British empires in India. This book explores how concepts of learning and Islamic traditions of gentry scholarship and bureaucracy were tied into the 18^th century Indian economy, and how they changed under the larger transformations due to British penetration of the Subcontinent.

Current Projects:

'Religion, Law and Pedagogy: The politics of negotiating liberalism in India 1915-1950', co-authored with Nandini Chatterjee, Kings College, London, due early 2010.

Students, scribes and scholars: learning and education in the emergence of modern India, 1760-1870, anticip­ated completion 2013

Seminars and Conference Papers:

‘The Future of Afghanistan and Pakistan’, Annapolis Forum, Feb. 11, 2010,

‘Afghanistan, the Taliban and the US: Prospects for Stability’, Asia Forum, US Naval Academy, 6 November 2009

‘Outsourcing, America and Terrorism: India as a rising global power’? Asia Forum, US Naval Academy, 20 February 2009

'India and the US relations for the 21st century', Asia Forum, US Naval Academy, autumn 2008.

'The Raj, religion and "contracting out" secularism in colonial India, 1850-1950', Religion and Modern States Conference, King's College, London, January 2009.

'Islam, Hinduism, the public sphere and modernity in colonial India, 1850-1920', for 48th International Association of Historians of Asia (IAHA) Conference, New Delhi, India, November 2008.

“Learning, Education and Knowledge in the Transition to Colonialism in India, c.1750-1850,” Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, 6 April 2008.

"Pakistan, South Asia and the US after Benazir Bhutto", Asia Forum, US Naval Academy, 1 February 2008.

“Aesthetics, Education and the Environment in Colonial North India, c.1840-1940,” South Asia Seminar Series, St. Antony's College, Oxford, 29 May 2007.

“Education and Indian Society in the Emergence of Modern Knowledge and Religions,” Imperial History Seminar, Kings College, University of London, 16 October 2006.

“Education and Indian Secularism in Colonial India,” panel with Professor C.A. Bayly, N. Chatterjee, Religion and the Public Sphere in Colonial India, 74th Annual Anglo-American Conference of Historians, Institute of Historical Research, London, 7 July 2005.

“Education, Religion and "Colonial Knowledge" in North India c.1880-1915,” Centre for South Asian Studies, Edinburgh University, 17 March 2004.

“Missionary Education, Knowledge and North Indian Society, c.1880-1915,” panel organizer for Colonial Knowledge and Empire, 20th Annual South Asian Studies Conference, University of California at Berkeley, 11-12 February 2005.

“Education, Religion and Colonial Knowledge in North India c.1880-1915,” to South Asian Seminar Series, St. Antony's College, Oxford University, 16 November 2004.

“Religion, Education and Colonial knowledge in North India, c.1880-1915,” Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge University, 3 November 2004.

“The Indian Mutiny of 1857: Revolution or Re-evaluation?” South Asian Studies Seminar, Oxford University, 28 February 2002.

Research Languages:

Hindi (written, advanced; intermediate, oral)

Urdu (intermediate, oral and written)

Farsi (written, intermediate; oral, intermediate)

English (fluent, oral and written)

French (intermediate, oral and written).