The Center for International History presents
A Hidden History: Popular Politics in 18th c. Delhi
Abhishek Kaicker (University of California Berkeley)
Thursday, Oct 31
4:10pm
Fayerweather Hall 411
Columbia University
Abstract:
A long-held preconception in the study of premodern South Asia has been that ordinary people were the passive objects of imperial sovereignty. By contrast, this talk will make the case that by the late seventeenth century, a distinct politics of the people in relation to kingship had become manifest in the cities of the Mughal empire, and particularly its capital Shahjahanabad. Such a popular politics, however, cannot come into view until we both rethink our conceptions of both sovereignty and politics before colonialism.
Bio:
Abhishek Kaicker is an assistant professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2014. His first book, The King and the People: Sovereignty and Popular Politics in Mughal Delhi (Oxford University Press, NYC) will appear in print in March, 2020.