A bit on myself: Origins
Born in the town of Belgaum – a linguistically contested territory between the two Indian states of
Karnataka and Maharashtra, I can certainly claim that my identity was stamped by my father who
leaned towards the idea that Belgaum should belong to Karnataka, although when he conversed
with my mother the language was Marathi!! Instead, Kannada, the mother tongue of Kannadigas
was imposed upon me and my siblings. And, contrary to my father’s expectations this made me a
more open person to the existence of fluid identities and now I consider myself a global citizen
without boundaries.
Another good result was that it led me to learn three modern Indian languages including Hindi,
Marathi and Kannada.
Education:
My MA and MPhil degrees in Modern Indian History were acquired from JNU (acronym is more
famous than the tongue twister – Jawaharlal Nehru University). I was awarded a Commonwealth
Scholarship to pursue a doctoral degree in SOAS which I completed under the supervision of Prof.
David Arnold.
I secured my first job as a PhD student (final year!) in Bath Spa University in 1993. In 1995, I shifted
to Cardiff University, Wales and have been there since then.
Teaching Interests:
I teach various aspects of the political, social, economic and cultural aspects of interaction between
the Raj with their Indian subjects during the heyday of imperialism.
My year three (UG) Special Subject is titled on ‘Race, Sex and Empire under the Raj’. The relations
between Britain and India are treated as an integrated dialogue between the ‘metropole’ or home
country and the ‘periphery’ or colony by applying the new categories of historical analyses: race and
sex alongside gender and class.
I also supervise MA and doctoral students within the larger area of Modern Indian History. In 2010,
one of my doctoral students bagged the prestigious Economic History Society’s postdoctoral award
[Power Fellowship], the first time it has been awarded for Cardiff University.
Research Interests:
 Gender and women’s history of modern India; Theory and Method including debates
within gender and women’s history of India; questions of agency and formation of
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Indian women’s subjectivities
 Understanding women’s lives in nineteenth century colonial India. Relevant themes
include infanticide and crime, rights to property, education, sexual harassment and
violence, infant and child marriage and women’s rights in the public sphere.
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My research interests straddle gender and women’s history of modern India. It can be grouped thus:
 Currently expanding the ambit of ‘agency’ to include assertions of fundamentalist
identities and subjecthood of Indian women in an AHRC and BA funded study on the
contributions of Indian women to the birth of the Hindu Right in the nineteenth century
through the study of Lakshmibai Dravid’s treatise ‘Essays in the service of the nation’.
 Nature of the colonial state vis-à-vis Indian women; the impact of colonial economy on
the domestic economy; Indian middle classes and women.
Publications:
My research interests are reflected in my first book – The Emergence of Feminism in India, 18501920 published by Ashgate in December 2005. The book is the first full-length study of Indian
women’s lives in nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Since its publication 5 years ago it has
attracted international attention to the history of subaltern women’s consciousness in colonial India.
Declared as path-breaking and poised to become a ‘classic’ in the gender history of India, it has
brought forth many collaborative projects between myself and mainstream British imperial
historians as well as gender historians straddling different disciplines such as sociology, politics and
English literature. ‘Zubaan’, an Indian publishing house has expressed interest in producing an Indian
reprint of the book and I am currently negotiating a contract with them.
Reviewed in four leading refereed journals, it has received major and unstinting praise. A few
excerpts demonstrate the impact of the book on an international audience of scholars:
‘Dr. Anagol takes us in this book on a path-breaking – and exciting – journey through
western India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She guides us through a gendered
terrain that has been unknown in such extent and depth. She retrieves the agency in
women’s actions and in their pasts… and in so doing alters permanently our understanding
of this time and place. This is major research of the highest quality and represents highly
significant contribution to understanding Indian history.’
[Jim Masselos, University of Sydney]
One of the reviewers (Geraldine Forbes) has said that my work ‘has the potential to change the way
we think about Indian women in history.’
I have published a further two dozen articles in journals, research encyclopaedias and edited
collections. In my capacity as Editor of the peer reviewed history journal Cultural and Social History
run under the aegis of the Social History Society (UK) I have edited a dozen collections. Of them, I am
particularly proud of the Special Issue –published in late 2007 on ‘Partition of India.’ Published
poignantly in the year of the 60th anniversary of the birth of two nations – India and Pakistan – the
theme of the Special Issue is targeted towards redressing the hitherto heavily biased political and
diplomatic history of the Partition by turning to the ‘human face’ of the tragedy.
Padma – has said that the Social History Society welcomes papers from emerging scholars and a slot
or two are always held open for innovative, challenging inter disciplinary work produced by
doctoral/post doctoral students wishing to publish in the journal. So, there!
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ROBERTA: COULD YOU ANNOUNCE THIS:
In my book, The Emergence of Feminism in India, 1850-1920, I had explored the beginnings of
feminist movements in the western region of Maharashtra, India prior to the coming of Gandhi and
sent out a call that gender and Indian women’s history needs to be integrated into the mainstream
histories in order to illumine all aspects of social, economic, cultural and political processes that
went into the making of modern India. In the current project titled, - “Indian Women Patriots on the
Colonial State, Race and the Political Economy of Nationalism.”
this suggestion that gender and women’s perspectives needs integration is taken further and I hope
to broaden out into mainstream history concerns of Indian caste, community, race and economy
during the Raj.
RESEARCH RELATED EXTERNAL ACTIVITIES:
I am a member of the editorial board on Women’s History Review and South Asia Research.
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I am also the Asia Consultant for Asia for the BBC History Magazine.