I received my PhD in 2016 from the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. My dissertation traced the structure and architecture of exceptional legal regimes in the north eastern frontiers of British India, a cusp region spread across the contemporary geographies of north-east India, south-east Bangladesh and north western Burma.

Building on this, my current research looks at the infrastructure and logistics of exceptional, indemnity, emergency and martial laws in the British Empire. I am interested in the range of juridical techniques used to manage violence: the multiple legal subjects such techniques harvested, the categories of indigeneity and tribality subsequently generated from them, the economic and biopolitical questions emerging around such productions, and the residues, remainders of these forms in modern liberal democracies. My ongoing book project follows histories of violence embodied in colonial military expeditions primarily in South, South East Asia frontiers with comparative insights from Southern Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

I am also keen on conversations around the challenges, possibilities and practices of teaching global history from global south locations.

Research Interests and Areas of Supervision:

British Empire in the 19th and 20th century, South Asia and Southern Africa

Histories of Violence

States of Exception, Emergency, Indemnity and Martial Laws

Frontiers

Indigeneity and Infrastructure

Property and Energy Histories

Right Wing Politics

Research Project:

Trans-Himalayan Flows, Governance and Spaces of Encounter

https://lnu.se/en/research/searchresearch/research-projects/project-trans-himalayan-flows-governance-and-spaces-of-encounter/

Select Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

  1. Insurgent Law: Bengal Regulation III of 1818 and the Chin-Lushai Expeditions, 1872-1898 in Modern Asian Studies 2022 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X21000366
  2. Early Years of East India Company rule in Chittagong: Violence, waste and settlement c.1760-1790 in The Indian Economic and Social History Review April 2018 https://doi.org/10.1177/0019464618760449

Book Chapters

  1. The Law of Emptiness: Episodes from Lushai and Chin Hills (1890-98) in Neeladri Bhattacharya and Joy L K Pachau edited Landscape, Culture and Belonging: Writing the History of Northeast India Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2019 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/landscape-culture-and-belonging/law-of-emptiness-episodes-from-lushai-and-chin-hills-189098/18FDFF4CCAE002E6435AA0482F72A2D8
  2. Conquest and the Quotidian: Forms of Violence and the Making of Tripura (1761-1808)’ in Lipokmar Dzüvichü and Manjeet Baruah edited, Modern Practices in Northeast India: History, Culture, Representation London and New York: Routledge. 2018 https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351271363-3/conquest-quotidian-anandaroop-sen

Review Essays

  1. J Sai Deepak’s India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution. Bloomsbury 2021 https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2236899
  2. Genealogies of Exception: Writing Histories of Northeast India in History Compass. February 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12710

Book Reviews

  • Thomas Simpson, The Frontier in British India: Space, Science, and Power in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021, 298 pp. The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1177/00194646231170459

Media