Sekhar Bandyopadhyay
Visit the New Zealand India Research Institute.
Office hours
By appointment.
Qualifications
- MA, PhD University of Calcutta
- Fellow of New Zealand Academy of Humanities
- Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Grants and awards
- 'Rabindra-smriti Puraskar' [Rabindranath Tagore Prize] (2014) for 'Decolonisation in South Asia'
- Marsden grant (2011) for the project Dalits in the history of Partition in Eastern India.
Theses completed under supervision
- Sucharita Sen, 'Paradoxes of Hierarchy and Intimacy in Non-Official Interracial Relationships: British India, 1800-1915', PhD (2022).
- Meera Muralidharan, 'Power Without Patronage: Knowledge-making Endeavours of the Dutch East India Company in Malabar, 1663-1795', PhD (2020).
- Sarah Pinto, 'Shackled Bodies, Unchained Minds: Lunatic Asylums in the Bombay Presidency 1793-1921', PhD (2017).
- Masum Billah, 'Politics of Land Law: Poverty and Land Legislation in Bangladesh', PhD in Law (2017).
- Nazima Parveen, 'Ideas of Homeland and Politics of Space: A Study of Muslim Localities of Delhi', PhD (2016)
- Johnson Kukatlapalli, 'A Study of the Adjustment Experiences of Indian International Students in New Zealand Universities', PhD in Asian Studies (2016).
- Esha Verma, 'Sindh in Transition: From Mughal Rule to British Annexation, Early Eighteenth Century to 1843', PhD (2016).
- Ambalika Guha, 'Modernising Childbirth in Colonial Bengal', PhD (2015).
- Ben Kingsbury, 'An Imperial Disaster: The Bengal Cyclone of 1876', PhD (2015).
- Sabbaq Ahmed, 'Religious ideology and Muslim militancy in South Asia: selected case studies', PhD (2015).
- David Weaver, ' The Parsi Dilemma: Perspectives of NZ Parsi Community', MA in Asian Studies (2012).
- Adam McConnochie, '"The Blessed Land": narratives of Peasant resistance at Nandigram, West Bengal in 2007' MA (2012).
- Sharmila Bernau, 'Imagining Community in Godzone - Hinduism and Identity Amongst Indians in Wellington: An Oral History Project,' MA (with Charlotte Macdonald) (2006).
- Yoong Ru Heng, 'Communal Riots in Malaysia: The May 13th (1969) Incident Reconsidered,' MA (2004).
Theses in progress
- Sneha Pal, 'Hidden in Hides: The Worlds of Calcutta Leather Industry Labour 1905-1996', PhD (commenced in 2019).
Research areas
- Social and political history of South Asia during the colonial period
- Caste system, identity formation, and nationalist politics in India in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, with special reference to the Bengal region (eastern India)
- Decolonisation and post-colonial nationhood in India
- Indian diaspora in New Zealand
- India–New Zealand relations
Publications
Books
- (With Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury), Caste and Partition in Bengal: The Story of Dalit Refugees, 1946-1961, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.
- (Co-editor with Tanika Sarkar), Caste in Bengal: Histories of Hierarchy, Exclusion and Resistance, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, in association with Ashoka University, 2022.
- (Co editor with Jane Buckingham), Indians and the Antipodes: Networks, Boundaries and Circulation, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018.
- (Co-editor with Aloka Parasher-Sen), Religion and Modernity in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016.
- (editor), Decolonization and Politics of Transition in South Asia, New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2016.
- (co-editor with Sita Venkateswar), Globalization and Challenges of Development in Contemporary India, New Delhi: Springer, 2016.
- From Plassey to Partition an After: A History of Modern India, Second Edition, New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2015.
- (co-editor with Tanika Sarkar), Calcutta: The Stormy Decades, New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2015 / Abingdon: Routledge, 2018.
- (co-editor with X. Huang and A.C. Tan), China, India and The End of Development Models, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
- (editor), India in New Zealand: Local Identities, Global Relations, Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2010.
- Decolonization in South Asia: Meanings of Freedom in Post-independence West Bengal, 1947–52, London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
- (editor), Nationalist Movement in India: A Reader, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009.
- Caste, Culture and Hegemony: Social Dominance in Colonial Bengal, New Delhi, Thousand Oaks London: Sage Publications, 2004.
- (editor), Bengal: Rethinking History. Essays in Historiography, International Centre for Bengal Studies Monograph No. 29, New Delhi: Manohar, 2001.
- Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial India: The Namasudras of Bengal 1872–1947, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1997, second edition, New Dehli: Oxford University Press, 2011.
- (co-editor with A. Dasgupta& W. van Schendel), Bengal: Communities, Development and States, New Delhi: Manohar, 1994.
- (co-editor with S. Das), Caste and Communal Politics in South Asia, Calcutta: KP Bagchi, 1993.
- Caste, Politics and the Raj: Bengal 1872–1937, Calcutta: KP Bagchi, 1990.