Dr. V. Rajesh

Name: V. Rajesh

Designation: Associate Professor

Email: rajeshv@iisermohali.ac.in

Telephone: +91-0172-2293169

Telefax: +91-0172-2240266

Office: 4F7, Academic Block 1

Websites Google Sites Academia Curriculum Vitae

Education Ph.D. History, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, 2010.

M.Phil. History, University of Hyderabad, 2004.
M.A. History, University of Hyderabad, 2003.
B.A. History, Madras Christian College (MCC), 2001.

Employment
Head, Department of HSS, IISER Mohali 15 February 2021 to 9 January 2024
Associate Professor, Department of HSS, IISER Mohali w.e.f. 6 October 2020
Assistant Professor, Department of HSS, IISER Mohali w.e.f. 29 November 2013
Assistant Professor, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta (CSSSC), Jun-Nov 2013
Assistant Professor, Department of History, Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ), Jun 2012-May 2013
Adjunct Faculty, Department of HSS, IIT Madras, Jan 2010-May 2012

Areas of Research Intellectual and Cultural History of Modern India, South Asian Literary Cultures, Literary Historiography, Tamil Language and Literature

Research Focus My earlier research dealt with the reproduction and reception of classical Tamil literature in colonial India. Focusing on what is understood in Tamil literary tradition as ‘Sangam’ anthologies, my work investigated the transmission of this body of literature in Tamil literary tradition in a long term historical perspective. By doing so, my work raised questions on the historiographical position of its dramatic ‘rediscovery’ in the second half of the nineteenth century in the backdrop of expanding print culture in colonial Madras. The research provided a background and structure to the history of print-publication of classical Tamil literature during the 19th and early 20th century. My current research is a book project on literary progressivism in Tamil India and Sri Lanka. I trace the impact of progressive ideology that emerged during the inter-war years in the subcontinent in the writings of individual Tamil authors, intellectuals and critics and in the pages of literary magazines before it took an organizational turn in the early 1960s in Tamilnadu. In the context of Sri Lanka, I examine the initiatives of Tamil intellectuals and writers associated with the Sri Lankan Progressive Writers Association from 1950s to 1970s. The research assumes significance given the absence accessible scholarly writings on Tamil literary progressivism in the 20th century.

Teaching HSS201 History of Science (Core Course)
HSS102 Concepts in Humanities and Social Sciences (Core Course, Co-Instructor)
HSS613 The Social History of Science in Modern India, 1780-1950 (Elective)
HSS617 From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India (Elective)
HSS618 India from Prehistory to Early History (Elective, Co-Instructor)
HSS620 Imagining India: An Intellectual History of Orientalism (Elective)
HSS627 Idea of India: Intellectual Imaginary of Nation (Elective)

Selected Publications

• •   ‘The Reception of Subramania Bharati in the Progressive Literary Movement in Tamil Nadu’ in Akshaya Kumar and Aman Kaur (Eds), Voices of Change: Progressive Poetry and Cultural Resistance in India, Springer, 2026, pp. 311-330. (Forthcoming). (https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Voices_of_Change.html?id=cuiK0QEACAAJ&redir_esc=y)
  •   Chapter titled ‘Cankam’ in Renny Thomas and Sasanka Perera (Eds), Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes, Tulika Books, New Delhi, 2025, pp. 160-168. (https://shop.tulikabooks.in/book/decolonial-keywords-67fe08d88a757); (jointly distributed with Columbia University Press) (https://cup.columbia.edu/book/decolonial-keywords/9788197938306/)
  •   ‘Reading Subramania Bharati Under Progressive Eye: Literary Criticism and the Cultural Left in Tamilnadu’ MIDS Working Paper No. 245, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, 2025. (https://www.mids.ac.in/assets/doc/WP_245.pdf)
  •   ‘Progressivism and Tamil Modernity: Tracing the History of Progressive Literature in Tamil, 1940-1970’ in Nishat Zaidi (ed), Indian Modernities: Literary Cultures from the 18th to the 20th Century, Routledge, New Delhi, 2023, pp. 201-225.(https://www.routledge.com/Indian-Modernities-Literary-Cultures-from-the-18th-to-the-20th-Century/Zaidi/p/book/9781032280127) (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003405788-17/progressivism-tamil-modernity-rajesh-venkatasubramanian?context=ubx&refId=bf8e33f5-b577-4cc1-985a-0d94dfe5a0db). Review: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02759527.2024.2405783
  • (South Asian Review)
  •   ‘The Making of Classical Tamil Literature: Multiple Sources in its Construction’ in Aloka Parasher-Sen (ed), Seeking History through Her Source: South of the Vindhyas, Orient Blackswan, New Delhi, 2022, pp. 25-43. https://orientblackswan.com/details?id=9789354422928 Reviews:- 1) Frontline: https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/book-review-seeking-history-through-her-source-south-of-the-vindhyas-edited-by-aloka-parasher-sen-captures-the-fragment-in-history/article65870491.ece 2) The Book Review: https://www.thebookreviewindia.org/interrogating-sources-in-innovative-ways/
  •   The Russian Revolution and India: Compilation from Soviet Land Magazine and Other Sources, Routledge, 2020. (Co-Editor). (https://www.routledge.com/The-Russian-Revolution-and-India/Manian-Rajesh/p/book/9780367642082)
  •   Manuscripts, Memory and History: Classical Tamil Literature in Colonial India, Cambridge University Press India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi, 2014. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/manuscripts-memory-and-history/BA58606E20FEB02BCFDF11D77FF40EEF) Reviews: 1) EPW: https://www.epw.in/journal/2014/42/book-reviews/classical-tamil-literature.html 2) IESHR: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0019464615573295 3) Relegere-Studies in Religion and Reception: https://relegere.org/relegere/issue/view/36 4) Frontline: https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/seeds-of-tamil-renaissance/article5787804.ece
  •   ‘Beyond the Politics of Identity: The Left and the Politics of Caste and Identity in Tamil Nadu, 1920-63’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 38, 4, 2015, pp. 543-557 (With Ravi Vaitheespara). (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00856401.2015.1070011 )
  •   ‘Spatial Perceptions in Early Tamil Poetry’, Summerhill: IIAS Review, Vol. XXIV, No. 1 (Summer 2018), pp. 6-12. http://14.139.58.200/ojs/index.php/summerhill/article/view/1097
  •   ‘The Making of Sangam Literary Canon and Tamil Identity’, in R. Cheran, Darshan Ambalavanar and Chelva Kanakanayagam, (eds.), New Demarcations: Essays in Tamil Studies, Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc, Toronto, 2008, pp. 133-147. https://www.amazon.in/New-Demarcations-Essays-Tamil-Studies/dp/1551303434

  • Doctoral Supervision

    1) Ansad. C, ‘Caste, Culture and Communalism: An Ethnohistorical Study of Araya Fisher Communities in Coastal Malabar Regions of Kerala’, Awarded, July 2024.
    2) Amitoj Kaur, ‘Punjabi Cosmopolis: Interrogating Literary Historiography in Punjabi’, Awarded, May 2024.
    3) Basil Alias, ‘Panchayat Raj Institutions and Tribal Governance in a Non-Scheduled Region: A Study of Edamalakudy Tribal Village in Kerala,’ Awarded, August 2022.
    4) Manleen Kaur, ‘Catastrophe of the Great Economic Depression: The Case of India,’ Awarded, July 2020.
    5) Nilkantha Pal, ‘Imagining Childhood in Colonial Bengal: Juvenile Magazines, Literary Culture, and Nationalism, c. 1870-1940’ (In Progress)
    6) Swapnil Chaudhary, ‘Communalism and Indigenous Medicine: Study of Ayurvedic and Unani Medicine in United Province, c. 1900-1925’ (In Progress)
    7) Utkarsha Negi, ‘Women in the Anti-Caste Movement in Central India, c.1920-1980’ (In Progress)
    8) Shafakat Hassan Mirza, ‘Contours of Progressivism in Urdu Literature’ (In Progress)
    9) Vir Pratap, ‘Modern Education, and Depressed Classes in Western India’ (In Progress)
    10) Aswin Kumar, ‘Transnational Revolutionary Movement in Late Colonial India: A Study of Chempakaraman Pillai’ (In Progress)
    11) Anamika Panda, ‘Science, print culture and popular science writing in Colonial Bengal’, (In Progress)
    12) Adith VS, ‘Human-Animal Interaction and Environmental History in Travancore’, (In Progress)

    Postdoctoral Mentorship

    1) Dr. Shilpi Rajpal, ‘Curing Madness? A Social and Cultural History of Insanity in Colonial North India 1780s-1950s’, 2015-2017. Published as a book by Oxford University Press, 2021.
    2) Dr. Ranjana Saha, ‘Milk, Maternities and Manliness: A Social History of Breastfeeding and Motherhood in Colonial Bengal, 1820s–1920s’, 2018-2020. Published as a book by Routledge.
    3) Dr. Shaheen KT, ‘Afterlives of Tipu Sultan in Malabar, 1799 to Present’, 2020-2021.
    4) Dr. Shriya Bandyopadhyay, ‘Bengali Vernacular in Text and Context: A Social History of Bengal’s literary culture from Eighteenth to Nineteenth Century’, 2021-2023.
    5) Dr. Neha Chaudhary, ‘The Peoples of the Hindu Right versus the Union of India: State-making, Bureaucracy, and Dissent in the post-independent India; 1947-75’, (In Progress)

    Grants and Collaboration

    Collaborator for Project titled ‘How adaptive resilient our coastal social-ecological systems are? A study from Tamil Nadu coast’, Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences. Dr. P. Morthekai (Principal Investigator)
    Co-PI for a project titled ‘History of Science in north-west India in Colonial and Postcolonial Periods, Indian National Science Academy. 2025-26.

    Achievements

    Best Teacher Award, IISER Mohali, 2018.
    Jan Gonda Fellow, Jan Gonda Foundation, IIAS Leiden, The Netherlands, 2008.
    Andhra Bank Gold Medal for securing First with Distinction in M.A. History, University of Hyderabad, 2003.

    Affiliation

    Member, The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP)
    Member, Association for Asian Studies, Ann Arbor, Michigan
    Member, Indian History Congress
    Fellow, International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), Colombo, Sri Lanka, June-July 2023
    Affiliate, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, 2024