Welcome! I am a historian of cities, mountains and modern South Asia. My current research focusses on urban capitalism in the global South, the postwar concept of urban crisis, and the history of international development. I am an Assistant Professor of History, Department of History, Ashoka University, India.

My first book entitled Agents of Inertia: The Pursuit of Business Interest and Calcutta’s Urban-Economic Decline, 1900-1970, will be published by the Cambridge Uiversity Press (by Spring 2026). It is a history of the spatial politics of business elites in twentieth-century Calcutta and— to a lesser extent— Bombay. It shows how for a period of about seventy years, from the late nineteenth century to the late 1960s, Calcutta’s businesses emerged as one of the main obstacles to spatial change and infrastrcutural development in the city with devastating consequences. Through this study, my book recasts how we understand one of the most significant episodes in the economic, business and urban history of postcolonial India— Calcutta’s urban-economic decline. At the same time, it challenges two hegemonic ideas that shape how scholars and policymakers understand the relationship between business, urban development and capitalism, world over. One is that, under capitalism, the private pursuit of profit by business enterprise is invariably in the society’s interest. And the other, is that businesses in capitalist cities engage in pro-growth politics, and that their interests lie in pushing for the creative destruction of the urban built environment.

I am currently working on my second book tentatively titled Foundations of Development. This will be a history of the Ford Foundation’s involvement in postcolonial India’s development and politics.

At Ashoka, I teach courses such as “World Cities in Theory and History”; “Business History of India” and a foundation course on Indian Civilizations. I particularly enjoy teaching a course I have designed on the global history of Mountains and Mountaineering that explores the central but often ignored place of mountains in the making of the modern world. I am developing this interest into a full-length book project. This book will be a global history of Indian mountaineering.

Please contact me if you have interesting leads or materials on Indian mountaineering or the Ford Foundation in India! I will be thrilled to hear from you.