Mahesh Sharma
Biographic Data
| ID | 3791754 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mahesh Sharma |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mahesh |
| FAMILY NAME | Sharma |
| SIGNATURE | SHARMA M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Panjab University, Chandigarh |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2589-033X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Hydro-meteorological and infrastructural damage analysis of the 2025 Ramban cloudburst event in the North-Western Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, India
The North-Western Himalayan region, particularly Jammu and Kashmir, is becoming increasingly vulnerable to extreme hydrometeorological events such as cloudbursts and flash floods that cause widespread socio-economic and environmental disruption. This study investigates the severe cloudburst and its aftermath in the Ramban district on April 20, 2025, a strategically vital area along the Jammu–Srinagar National Highway (NH-44). Extreme precipitatio…
Assessing the prevalence of insomnia and its socio-behavioral determinants among school going adolescents in Bagamati Province, Nepal
Insomnia among adolescents is a prevalent public health concern and is closely linked to suicidal tendencies, health risk behaviors, and other adverse health outcomes. This study builds on existing literature by exploring the multifaceted associations between insomnia and socio-behavioral factors, which are currently underexplored in the Nepalese context. It assesses the prevalence of insomnia and its association with socio-behavioral factors and…
Utilization of adolescent friendly health services and its associated factors among higher secondary students in mid-western Himalayan mountainous district of Nepal
Adolescent friendly health services (AFHS) are designed to make health services accommodate the unique needs of adolescents. AFHS are characterized by three basic characteristics (programmatic, health facilities and health service providers) that should be applied. However, limited is known about the use of AFHS in the context of Nepal. This study aimed to assess the extent of AFHS utilization and associated factors among higher secondary student…
Shepherds, Memory, and 1947
This article examines Gaddi memory construction and transmission, influenced by popular historical narratives from the agrarian communities with which they interacted. After considering the construction of Gaddi 'Rajputs' who migrated from Rajasthan-claims that are historically dubious but have obvious social utility-I draw from old fieldnotes to explore another salient memory. Specifically, I analyze Gaddi shepherds' memories about the communita…
Shrinking Greens
The sultans of Gujarat tried to transform the landscape by planting native and exotic trees and introducing gardens on the perceived Central-Asian Khorasan style to underpin their control over the acquired or conquered territory and its nature-landscape. After the founding of Ahmedabad, gardens within the religious and secular architecture came up all over the city. The foliage and gardens were hugely admired by the travellers passing by the city…
Narratives of a place named Ellora
Ellora is the place where caves associated with different sects and religions were carved over a span of at least 800 years. While the caves, narrowly understood, have been the subject of many studies, the ‘place’, as a site of political and social interaction, has been largely neglected. Ellora was larger than just the caves; it was a place with a long history where traders, monks, artisans and armies brought in different ideas, reconsidered the…
Cultural Studies in Indian History
This chapter explores the some Indic cultural models used as explanatory tools by historians and anthropologists. The cultural geography of Kashmir was similarly devised by co-opting the entire range of Vedic-Puranic goddesses by associating them with rivers, creating thereby divine hierarchy. Similarly, in Chamba, an alternative cultural space was devised by Sanskritizing the local cultural ethos. Like Kashmir, linkages with the sub-continental …
The frayed margins of empire
The historiography of the nineteenth century Panjab privileges the core constituency of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s ‘empire’, whereby the margins are represented only as conquered territories. This article shifts the perspective by highlighting the context of ‘Zomian’ margins in the making of an ‘empire’. Based on coeval travellers’ accounts, news from Lahore Durbar and British Indian governmental sources, the focus is on the impact of economic and p…
State Formation and Cultural Complex in Western Himalaya
Lineage, Power and Perception
This paper deconstructs the royal genealogy (vamsavali) of Chamba, a western Himalayan kingdom in present-day Himachal Pradesh, and compares it with other such attempts to recast and/or reassert the dynastic lineage in the contemporary epigraphs issued over a period of eight hundred years. My assumption is that genealogies should be critically treated, like any other literary texts or other cultural objects which are influenced by, or have a bear…
Symbols of Empowerment
This article is an attempt to understand 'locality', where the issues of subversion, subordination and marginalization as well as the problematic notions of liminality and empowerment are more vibrant and real. We shall demonstrate that while the low castes and untouchables were engaged in economic conflict, at various levels, with the high-caste landowners, which resulted in occasional uprisings too, the popular belief system was used by the mar…
Puranic Texts from Kashmir
Focusing on the western Himalayan provinces of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, this article argues that the Indian hagiographic texts of the Puranas should be understood as a nuanced literature that sought to effect a paradigm shift in liturgy and praxis, fusing polity and religion, largely in contravention to the earlier Vedic–Upanishadic texts and their commentaries, but also building on them. Emphasis on local Sanskrit literature, specifically t…
Contested claims
The article grapples with the period of transition from ‘native’ to colonial rule. It comprehends the crisis of political-economy in transition by contextualising certain civil cases and petitions to understand how people exploited the ambiguity between power and authority—between the ideology of ‘tradition’ and the ‘method’ of colonial institutions—to elevate their social and economic status. While the colonial institutions could empower individ…
Draupadi among Rajputs, Muslims and Dalits
Making the Deity
State formation and cultural complex in western Himalaya
This article explores an interface between the cultural complex and state formation in Chamba, emphasising a continuous process of change and transition, forging vertical linkages with the north Indian polity and religious processes that mutated significantly over the long-dur»e. Such linkages were replicated in peripheries as well, which connected them vertically with the nucleus and horizontally with competing segments. Such correlation not onl…
Life Support Promising Food Plants Among Aboriginls of Patalkot, Madhya Pradesh
The relationship between biological and cultural factors is well exhibited by nutritional aspects under the rubrie of different ecosystems. Plant species provide an extremely wide range of useful products relased to nutritional aspects. The Bharias of Patalkot are the aboriginals of Patalkot and most primative tribal population of Madhya Pradesh. They are fighting for survival and conseartly trying to exploit the existing biodiversity in their ow…
Artisans and monastic credit in early twentieth century Himachal
Marginalisation and appropriation
State formation and cultural complex in western Himalaya
This article explores an interface between the cultural complex and state formation in Chamba, emphasising a continuous process of change and transition, forging vertical linkages with the north Indian polity and religious processes that mutated significantly over the long-dur»e. Such linkages were replicated in peripheries as well, which connected them vertically with the nucleus and horizontally with competing segments. Such correlation not onl…
The frayed margins of empire
The historiography of the nineteenth century Panjab privileges the core constituency of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s ‘empire’, whereby the margins are represented only as conquered territories. This article shifts the perspective by highlighting the context of ‘Zomian’ margins in the making of an ‘empire’. Based on coeval travellers’ accounts, news from Lahore Durbar and British Indian governmental sources, the focus is on the impact of economic and p…
Marginalisation and appropriation
Shepherds, Memory, and 1947
This article examines Gaddi memory construction and transmission, influenced by popular historical narratives from the agrarian communities with which they interacted. After considering the construction of Gaddi 'Rajputs' who migrated from Rajasthan-claims that are historically dubious but have obvious social utility-I draw from old fieldnotes to explore another salient memory. Specifically, I analyze Gaddi shepherds' memories about the communita…
Lineage, Power and Perception
This paper deconstructs the royal genealogy (vamsavali) of Chamba, a western Himalayan kingdom in present-day Himachal Pradesh, and compares it with other such attempts to recast and/or reassert the dynastic lineage in the contemporary epigraphs issued over a period of eight hundred years. My assumption is that genealogies should be critically treated, like any other literary texts or other cultural objects which are influenced by, or have a bear…
Symbols of Empowerment
This article is an attempt to understand 'locality', where the issues of subversion, subordination and marginalization as well as the problematic notions of liminality and empowerment are more vibrant and real. We shall demonstrate that while the low castes and untouchables were engaged in economic conflict, at various levels, with the high-caste landowners, which resulted in occasional uprisings too, the popular belief system was used by the mar…
Artisans and monastic credit in early twentieth century Himachal
Marginalisation and appropriation
Artisans and monastic credit in early twentieth century Himachal
Life Support Promising Food Plants Among Aboriginls of Patalkot, Madhya Pradesh
The relationship between biological and cultural factors is well exhibited by nutritional aspects under the rubrie of different ecosystems. Plant species provide an extremely wide range of useful products relased to nutritional aspects. The Bharias of Patalkot are the aboriginals of Patalkot and most primative tribal population of Madhya Pradesh. They are fighting for survival and conseartly trying to exploit the existing biodiversity in their ow…
Draupadi among Rajputs, Muslims and Dalits
Making the Deity
State formation and cultural complex in western Himalaya
This article explores an interface between the cultural complex and state formation in Chamba, emphasising a continuous process of change and transition, forging vertical linkages with the north Indian polity and religious processes that mutated significantly over the long-dur»e. Such linkages were replicated in peripheries as well, which connected them vertically with the nucleus and horizontally with competing segments. Such correlation not onl…
Contested claims
The article grapples with the period of transition from ‘native’ to colonial rule. It comprehends the crisis of political-economy in transition by contextualising certain civil cases and petitions to understand how people exploited the ambiguity between power and authority—between the ideology of ‘tradition’ and the ‘method’ of colonial institutions—to elevate their social and economic status. While the colonial institutions could empower individ…
Puranic Texts from Kashmir
Focusing on the western Himalayan provinces of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, this article argues that the Indian hagiographic texts of the Puranas should be understood as a nuanced literature that sought to effect a paradigm shift in liturgy and praxis, fusing polity and religion, largely in contravention to the earlier Vedic–Upanishadic texts and their commentaries, but also building on them. Emphasis on local Sanskrit literature, specifically t…
Symbols of Empowerment
This article is an attempt to understand 'locality', where the issues of subversion, subordination and marginalization as well as the problematic notions of liminality and empowerment are more vibrant and real. We shall demonstrate that while the low castes and untouchables were engaged in economic conflict, at various levels, with the high-caste landowners, which resulted in occasional uprisings too, the popular belief system was used by the mar…
Lineage, Power and Perception
This paper deconstructs the royal genealogy (vamsavali) of Chamba, a western Himalayan kingdom in present-day Himachal Pradesh, and compares it with other such attempts to recast and/or reassert the dynastic lineage in the contemporary epigraphs issued over a period of eight hundred years. My assumption is that genealogies should be critically treated, like any other literary texts or other cultural objects which are influenced by, or have a bear…
State Formation and Cultural Complex in Western Himalaya
Cultural Studies in Indian History
This chapter explores the some Indic cultural models used as explanatory tools by historians and anthropologists. The cultural geography of Kashmir was similarly devised by co-opting the entire range of Vedic-Puranic goddesses by associating them with rivers, creating thereby divine hierarchy. Similarly, in Chamba, an alternative cultural space was devised by Sanskritizing the local cultural ethos. Like Kashmir, linkages with the sub-continental …
The frayed margins of empire
The historiography of the nineteenth century Panjab privileges the core constituency of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s ‘empire’, whereby the margins are represented only as conquered territories. This article shifts the perspective by highlighting the context of ‘Zomian’ margins in the making of an ‘empire’. Based on coeval travellers’ accounts, news from Lahore Durbar and British Indian governmental sources, the focus is on the impact of economic and p…
Narratives of a place named Ellora
Ellora is the place where caves associated with different sects and religions were carved over a span of at least 800 years. While the caves, narrowly understood, have been the subject of many studies, the ‘place’, as a site of political and social interaction, has been largely neglected. Ellora was larger than just the caves; it was a place with a long history where traders, monks, artisans and armies brought in different ideas, reconsidered the…
Shrinking Greens
The sultans of Gujarat tried to transform the landscape by planting native and exotic trees and introducing gardens on the perceived Central-Asian Khorasan style to underpin their control over the acquired or conquered territory and its nature-landscape. After the founding of Ahmedabad, gardens within the religious and secular architecture came up all over the city. The foliage and gardens were hugely admired by the travellers passing by the city…
Utilization of adolescent friendly health services and its associated factors among higher secondary students in mid-western Himalayan mountainous district of Nepal
Adolescent friendly health services (AFHS) are designed to make health services accommodate the unique needs of adolescents. AFHS are characterized by three basic characteristics (programmatic, health facilities and health service providers) that should be applied. However, limited is known about the use of AFHS in the context of Nepal. This study aimed to assess the extent of AFHS utilization and associated factors among higher secondary student…
Shepherds, Memory, and 1947
This article examines Gaddi memory construction and transmission, influenced by popular historical narratives from the agrarian communities with which they interacted. After considering the construction of Gaddi 'Rajputs' who migrated from Rajasthan-claims that are historically dubious but have obvious social utility-I draw from old fieldnotes to explore another salient memory. Specifically, I analyze Gaddi shepherds' memories about the communita…
Assessing the prevalence of insomnia and its socio-behavioral determinants among school going adolescents in Bagamati Province, Nepal
Insomnia among adolescents is a prevalent public health concern and is closely linked to suicidal tendencies, health risk behaviors, and other adverse health outcomes. This study builds on existing literature by exploring the multifaceted associations between insomnia and socio-behavioral factors, which are currently underexplored in the Nepalese context. It assesses the prevalence of insomnia and its association with socio-behavioral factors and…
Hydro-meteorological and infrastructural damage analysis of the 2025 Ramban cloudburst event in the North-Western Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, India
The North-Western Himalayan region, particularly Jammu and Kashmir, is becoming increasingly vulnerable to extreme hydrometeorological events such as cloudbursts and flash floods that cause widespread socio-economic and environmental disruption. This study investigates the severe cloudburst and its aftermath in the Ramban district on April 20, 2025, a strategically vital area along the Jammu–Srinagar National Highway (NH-44). Extreme precipitatio…
Sociology (13 works) · History (10 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · South Asian Studies and Conflicts (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Anthropology (6 works) · Archaeology (6 works) · Geography (6 works) · History (6 works)