Pankaj Jha
Biographic Data
| ID | 4169293 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Pankaj Jha |
| GIVEN NAMES | Pankaj |
| FAMILY NAME | Jha |
| SIGNATURE | JHA P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Delhi |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1183-3633 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Rulers, Subordinates, Literati, Slaves
This chapter discusses the institutional precedents and legacies of the Delhi Sultanate. The Ghurid conquest of northern India between 1192 and 1204 is sometimes identified as the chronological beginning of the Delhi Sultanate. Yet, the Afghan Ghurids represented none of the major streams of Islam; nor were they at home in the Persian language. From the 1190s on, their military commanders in India were mainly Turkish military slaves (bandagan-i k…
Unclaimed Victories
This article aims to provide a balanced re-evaluation of the 1962 border conflict between India and China, challenging the dominant narrative of an unqualified Indian military defeat while incorporating an analysis of underexplored defensive successes. Using the critical theory of information as a guiding framework, it examines how political decisions, media narratives and operational complexities shaped public perceptions of the conflict. The st…
Traditional Water Bodies and the Policy‐Practice Interface of Water Conservation
India continues to face a clear and escalating “water crises” marked by scarcity of water. There is now an emphasis on revitalizing historical water catchments and rainwater harvesting structures, which would leverage low‐cost, decentralized and community centered interventions drawing on traditional knowledge and technology. However, there exists a policy vacuum with respect to revival of the smaller water bodies such as ponds. Through a compara…
Region, Politics and Literary Culture
This paper examines the notion of region as they figure in certain literary texts of the medieval and early modern north India across diverse linguistic archives. The idea is to look at and beyond how these compositions understood and represented the region. What were the constituent factors of the region, and how do they manifest themselves? As an imagined, lived, constituted and contested idea, what are the varying set of traits associated with…
Tracing Historical Forms of Servitude
History of domestic service in South Asia is beginning to attract scholars but a rich historiography around it is still distant and difficult. The forms of servitude are different across different times, places and contexts. The sources available to scholars for specific sites and moments in history are marked by extreme diversity of language, genre, concerns, and vantage points. Studies based on exploration of particular kinds of texts across di…
India’s maritime diplomacy in Southeast Asia
India–Southeast Asia defence cooperation has not been highlighted much, primarily to not give out wrong signals about India’s power projection outlook. With India steadfastly maintaining that it is a benign nation and not a revisionist power, engagement in the defence domain with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been attempted in five ways. The first includes India’s engagement in ASEAN defence mechanisms, such as ASEAN Defence …
Exploring the Impacts of Economic Corridors on South Asian Countries
The growth of economic corridors in developing regions has become instrumental in boosting economic growth and infrastructure. Economic corridors integrate existing road and rail networks to build effective multimodal transportation networks within a particular geographical setting with the aid of quality distribution networks, logistics and infrastructure. This helps in interlinking various markets and production centres of respective countries.…
State, Floods and Politics of Knowledge
This article identifies two main perspectives on flood control: the traditional and the modern hydrological. The objective here is to look at the contest between them from the point of view of the politics of knowledge. The traditional perspective views floods as a part of life and focuses on people’s wisdom or local knowledge of flood control. The hydrological approach, on the other hand, is mostly concerned with taming a river and views floods …
A Political History of Literature
Vidyapati was a poet and a scholar who lived in the fifteenth century north Bihar and composed nearly a dozen texts on varied themes in three languages. The book focuses on three of Vidyapati’s texts: Likhanāvalī , a Sanskrit treatise on writing letters and documents; Puruṣaparīkṣā , a Sanskrit compilation of mytho-historical stories focused on masculinity and political ethics; and Kīrtilatā , a political biography in Apabhraṃśa of a prince of Mi…
Political History of Literature
The Literary and the Political in the Fifteenth Century
Historians rarely write about the fifteenth century in north India. When they do, it is within certain set frames, for instance, as an interregnum, or as part of ‘regional’ histories. Occasionally, they write about the ferment of the bhakti ‘movement’ during the period. Tracing the narrow lanes of this historiography, the chapter also points to recent researches that raise some interesting questions. These relate to military labour, literary cult…
Revisiting Raag Darbari After Fifty Years
Literary Conduits for ‘Consent’
The making of the imperial subjects is as much a matter of historical process as the emergence of the empire. In the case of the Mughal state, this process started much before its actual establishment in the sixteenth century. The fifteenth century in North India was a period of unusual cultural ferment. The emergence of the Mughal imperial formation in the next century was intimately related to the fast congealing tendency of the north Indian so…
Beyond the local and the universal
On rare occasions when historians study political thought articulated in Sanskrit in pre-Mughal and Mughal north India, they do it in isolation from studies of ‘religious’ or legal ideas. This article focuses on Vidyapati, a prolific but neglected poet and scholar of north Bihar from the understudied fifteenth century. A historical–critical examination of two of his Sanskrit texts, Puruṣaparīkṣā and Likhanāvalī , reveals that he used his expertis…
Mapping Human Genetic Diversity in Asia
Patterns of Early Migration In order to gain insight into various migrations that must have happened during movement of early humans into Asia and the subsequent populating of the largest continent on Earth, the HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium (p. 1541 ) analyzed genetic variation in almost 2000 individuals representing 73 Asian and two non-Asian populations. The results suggest that there may have been a single major migration of people into Asia …
Indian Diaspora in Malaysia and Singapore
Indonesia
Indonesia has slowly evolved as a nation which though afflicted by the internal differences and problems since independence. Also in the recent past it transformed itself into a democracy in 2004 and also managed to survive the financial crisis of 1997. Though many commentators and social scientists have lamented on the fact that there are too many conflict areas in Indonesia to let it emerge from the financial crisis. But the times have changed …
Islamist Radicalism and ‘Counter-Radicalisation’ in Southeast Asia
Beyond the local and the universal
On rare occasions when historians study political thought articulated in Sanskrit in pre-Mughal and Mughal north India, they do it in isolation from studies of ‘religious’ or legal ideas. This article focuses on Vidyapati, a prolific but neglected poet and scholar of north Bihar from the understudied fifteenth century. A historical–critical examination of two of his Sanskrit texts, Puruṣaparīkṣā and Likhanāvalī , reveals that he used his expertis…
Traditional Water Bodies and the Policy‐Practice Interface of Water Conservation
India continues to face a clear and escalating “water crises” marked by scarcity of water. There is now an emphasis on revitalizing historical water catchments and rainwater harvesting structures, which would leverage low‐cost, decentralized and community centered interventions drawing on traditional knowledge and technology. However, there exists a policy vacuum with respect to revival of the smaller water bodies such as ponds. Through a compara…
Tracing Historical Forms of Servitude
History of domestic service in South Asia is beginning to attract scholars but a rich historiography around it is still distant and difficult. The forms of servitude are different across different times, places and contexts. The sources available to scholars for specific sites and moments in history are marked by extreme diversity of language, genre, concerns, and vantage points. Studies based on exploration of particular kinds of texts across di…
Exploring the Impacts of Economic Corridors on South Asian Countries
The growth of economic corridors in developing regions has become instrumental in boosting economic growth and infrastructure. Economic corridors integrate existing road and rail networks to build effective multimodal transportation networks within a particular geographical setting with the aid of quality distribution networks, logistics and infrastructure. This helps in interlinking various markets and production centres of respective countries.…
State, Floods and Politics of Knowledge
This article identifies two main perspectives on flood control: the traditional and the modern hydrological. The objective here is to look at the contest between them from the point of view of the politics of knowledge. The traditional perspective views floods as a part of life and focuses on people’s wisdom or local knowledge of flood control. The hydrological approach, on the other hand, is mostly concerned with taming a river and views floods …
Literary Conduits for ‘Consent’
The making of the imperial subjects is as much a matter of historical process as the emergence of the empire. In the case of the Mughal state, this process started much before its actual establishment in the sixteenth century. The fifteenth century in North India was a period of unusual cultural ferment. The emergence of the Mughal imperial formation in the next century was intimately related to the fast congealing tendency of the north Indian so…
Islamist Radicalism and ‘Counter-Radicalisation’ in Southeast Asia
Indonesia
Indonesia has slowly evolved as a nation which though afflicted by the internal differences and problems since independence. Also in the recent past it transformed itself into a democracy in 2004 and also managed to survive the financial crisis of 1997. Though many commentators and social scientists have lamented on the fact that there are too many conflict areas in Indonesia to let it emerge from the financial crisis. But the times have changed …
Mapping Human Genetic Diversity in Asia
Patterns of Early Migration In order to gain insight into various migrations that must have happened during movement of early humans into Asia and the subsequent populating of the largest continent on Earth, the HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium (p. 1541 ) analyzed genetic variation in almost 2000 individuals representing 73 Asian and two non-Asian populations. The results suggest that there may have been a single major migration of people into Asia …
Indian Diaspora in Malaysia and Singapore
Beyond the local and the universal
On rare occasions when historians study political thought articulated in Sanskrit in pre-Mughal and Mughal north India, they do it in isolation from studies of ‘religious’ or legal ideas. This article focuses on Vidyapati, a prolific but neglected poet and scholar of north Bihar from the understudied fifteenth century. A historical–critical examination of two of his Sanskrit texts, Puruṣaparīkṣā and Likhanāvalī , reveals that he used his expertis…
Literary Conduits for ‘Consent’
The making of the imperial subjects is as much a matter of historical process as the emergence of the empire. In the case of the Mughal state, this process started much before its actual establishment in the sixteenth century. The fifteenth century in North India was a period of unusual cultural ferment. The emergence of the Mughal imperial formation in the next century was intimately related to the fast congealing tendency of the north Indian so…
A Political History of Literature
Vidyapati was a poet and a scholar who lived in the fifteenth century north Bihar and composed nearly a dozen texts on varied themes in three languages. The book focuses on three of Vidyapati’s texts: Likhanāvalī , a Sanskrit treatise on writing letters and documents; Puruṣaparīkṣā , a Sanskrit compilation of mytho-historical stories focused on masculinity and political ethics; and Kīrtilatā , a political biography in Apabhraṃśa of a prince of Mi…
Political History of Literature
The Literary and the Political in the Fifteenth Century
Historians rarely write about the fifteenth century in north India. When they do, it is within certain set frames, for instance, as an interregnum, or as part of ‘regional’ histories. Occasionally, they write about the ferment of the bhakti ‘movement’ during the period. Tracing the narrow lanes of this historiography, the chapter also points to recent researches that raise some interesting questions. These relate to military labour, literary cult…
Revisiting Raag Darbari After Fifty Years
India’s maritime diplomacy in Southeast Asia
India–Southeast Asia defence cooperation has not been highlighted much, primarily to not give out wrong signals about India’s power projection outlook. With India steadfastly maintaining that it is a benign nation and not a revisionist power, engagement in the defence domain with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been attempted in five ways. The first includes India’s engagement in ASEAN defence mechanisms, such as ASEAN Defence …
Exploring the Impacts of Economic Corridors on South Asian Countries
The growth of economic corridors in developing regions has become instrumental in boosting economic growth and infrastructure. Economic corridors integrate existing road and rail networks to build effective multimodal transportation networks within a particular geographical setting with the aid of quality distribution networks, logistics and infrastructure. This helps in interlinking various markets and production centres of respective countries.…
State, Floods and Politics of Knowledge
This article identifies two main perspectives on flood control: the traditional and the modern hydrological. The objective here is to look at the contest between them from the point of view of the politics of knowledge. The traditional perspective views floods as a part of life and focuses on people’s wisdom or local knowledge of flood control. The hydrological approach, on the other hand, is mostly concerned with taming a river and views floods …
Tracing Historical Forms of Servitude
History of domestic service in South Asia is beginning to attract scholars but a rich historiography around it is still distant and difficult. The forms of servitude are different across different times, places and contexts. The sources available to scholars for specific sites and moments in history are marked by extreme diversity of language, genre, concerns, and vantage points. Studies based on exploration of particular kinds of texts across di…
Region, Politics and Literary Culture
This paper examines the notion of region as they figure in certain literary texts of the medieval and early modern north India across diverse linguistic archives. The idea is to look at and beyond how these compositions understood and represented the region. What were the constituent factors of the region, and how do they manifest themselves? As an imagined, lived, constituted and contested idea, what are the varying set of traits associated with…
Unclaimed Victories
This article aims to provide a balanced re-evaluation of the 1962 border conflict between India and China, challenging the dominant narrative of an unqualified Indian military defeat while incorporating an analysis of underexplored defensive successes. Using the critical theory of information as a guiding framework, it examines how political decisions, media narratives and operational complexities shaped public perceptions of the conflict. The st…
Traditional Water Bodies and the Policy‐Practice Interface of Water Conservation
India continues to face a clear and escalating “water crises” marked by scarcity of water. There is now an emphasis on revitalizing historical water catchments and rainwater harvesting structures, which would leverage low‐cost, decentralized and community centered interventions drawing on traditional knowledge and technology. However, there exists a policy vacuum with respect to revival of the smaller water bodies such as ponds. Through a compara…
Rulers, Subordinates, Literati, Slaves
This chapter discusses the institutional precedents and legacies of the Delhi Sultanate. The Ghurid conquest of northern India between 1192 and 1204 is sometimes identified as the chronological beginning of the Delhi Sultanate. Yet, the Afghan Ghurids represented none of the major streams of Islam; nor were they at home in the Persian language. From the 1190s on, their military commanders in India were mainly Turkish military slaves (bandagan-i k…
Political science (13 works) · History (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · History (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Fifteenth (5 works) · Ancient history (4 works) · China (4 works)