Sanjeev Kumar Rai
Biographic Data
| ID | 842336 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sanjeev Kumar Rai |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sanjeev Kumar |
| FAMILY NAME | Rai |
| SIGNATURE | RAI S K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Delhi |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7640-6582 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1971 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Pious Labor
The historiography of artisanal labor in colonial India reflects a dynamic and evolving field. While traditional Marxist interpretations highlight the detrimental effects of colonialism on indigenous industries, revisionist scholars and recent research offer a more nuanced view, acknowledging the resilience and adaptability of certain sectors and the multifaceted nature of economic change during this period. Yet “De-industrialization versus Moder…
Refashioning the fashion
This article explores how changing textile fashions and evolving consumer tastes reshaped handloom production in North India between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. British imperialism and industrialization transformed the social practices of textile design, production and consumption in colonial India. The implications of these new fashion arrangements – often overlooked – led both consumers and producers to engage, consciousl…
Childhood, politics, and socio-cultural positionality
Childhood is a socially constructed phase of life shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces. While often perceived as a natural and universal experience, childhood is deeply influenced by governmental policies, socio-cultural norms, and historical contexts. This paper explores how political structures and socio-cultural positionality shape childhood experiences across different societies. By drawing from theories of social construction, …
Ethnobotanical knowledge of wetlands dependent communities of Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, Nepal
Background: This study documents the ethnobotanical knowledge of wetlands dependent ethnic communities (Bantar/Sardar, Mallaha, Musahar, Rajput, and Tharu) residing in the buffer zones of the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve (KTWR) which includes sections of the Sapta Koshi River and its floodplains. Despite KTWR’s ecological importance, systematic research on traditional plant use remains limited. This work addresses that gap by capturing community-…
A Missiological Exploration of Luke 4
This article expands on a prior study on caste discrimination in the Seventh‐day Adventist (SDA) Church in India. Rooted in a missiological framework, it examines the transformative potential of Luke 4:18 in addressing the challenges faced by marginalized communities in the SDA context. The article draws on findings from earlier qualitative research on historical roots, missiological perspectives, and the relevance of biblical passages to inform …
From Home to Karkhana
The recent debate on de-industrialization in India centres on why certain traditional community economies, such as that of the Julaha (Muslim weaving community), persisted throughout colonial economic disruptions, instead of embracing mechanization and industrialization. The persistence of the Julaha community’s handloom economy in the early twentieth-century United Provinces was not simply a matter of resistance to change but a result of embedde…
Caste or Christ
This article offers empirical research using qualitative methodology to identify the presence of the caste system in the Seventh‐day Adventist Church in South Asia. The findings are based on the interviews of ten participants aged 18 to 36 from at least four language groups: Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, and Malayalam. All the participants volunteered to participate in the study. Three among the ten did face‐to‐face interviews, and the remaining seven pa…
Colonial Knowledge Economy
In existing historiography, the modernity discourse presents modern knowledge as being more economically efficient and technologically advanced compared to traditional skills. This theoretical lens has introduced a hierarchy of production and restructured the meaning of work and division of labour within the profession of weaving. Historically, the contexts of both the modern textile industry and traditional handloom weaving were interrelated in …
Communities of skill in the age of capitalism
The role of skills has been eclipsed in the transition from an agrarian-craft economy rooted in hand-labour in small households to a modern political economy where productive work takes place outside the household, in offices and factories. Yet the ideological erasure of skilled work should not be confused with its actual disappearance. Precisely because such work was typically construed as private and unimportant, the embedded hierarchies and sk…
Resisting the Destruction of Social Reproduction
Unpayable debt
In recent decades rural South India has witnessed the profound effects of financialization, effects that include growing sexual puritanism, changing kinship patterns, and the redefinition of caste hierarchies. For Dalit women, these transformations have given rise to new forms of debt, sexuality, and sexual-economic exchanges. Although such exchanges can be compatible with sexual desire and pleasure, Dalit women are nonetheless trapped in new for…
Social histories of exclusion and moments of resistance
Locating the theorisation and practices of caste hierarchies within South Asian Islam with reference to high-caste Muslims (Ashrafs) versus Julaha weavers (Ajlafs), this article argues that class exploitation and class hegemony over the marginalised sections of Muslim society in North India were practised through caste stratifications, social hierarchies and land relations. The horizontal equality of ‘textual Islam’ was transformed into vertical …
Market, Freedom and the Illusions of Microcredit. Patronage, Caste, Class and Patriarchy in Rural South India
As a market tool, microcredit is expected to promote individual freedom, for women in particular. By drawing on a southern Indian case, this paper argues that microcredit is in fact shaped by the power structures it is supposed to eradicate. Even if they are partly reshaped, local structures of power remain unavoidable to protect populations (something that microcredit fails to do) but also to build the microcredit market and ensure its legitimac…
Ways to Modernisation and Adaptation
This article is a study based on the United Provinces (UP) State Archive records on the early history of modern weaving schools in UP. Handloom weaving has been a major occupation in this region, diversified in skills, and involved some of the most skill-intensive types of textiles woven on the loom. Did the schools—as expected—formalise that knowledge to modernise it, bring it from the private domain to the public and encourage experiments upon …
The Fuzzy Boundaries
This article addresses the fluid, changeable and ambiguous character of religious and cultural identities, held by Julahas; claiming different local and sectarian backgrounds. The Barelvi, Wahabi and Deobandi schools of Indian Islam provided a polarising platform to the Julaha identity discourse from the late nineteenth century onwards, leading to a wider ‘shift’ towards supra-caste, supra-locally-based concepts of community and collective religi…
Weaving Hierarchies
This article discusses the complex nature of handloom weaving in market relations and the household production in the north Indian region of eastern Uttar Pradesh in the first half of the twentieth century through studying a Muslim weavers’ community known as Julahas. The entire community chain active in the process of handloom production in a micro-region was appropriated in a new relation of commodity production. Therefore, the article focuses …
Indian Economy 1858–1914
Negotiating India's Past
Nobility under the Mughals (1628-1658)
In this book an attempt has been made to determine, tentively, the size and composition of the nobility during the reign of Shah Jahan. It also analyses amomg other things the nature of the mutual relationship that existed between the crown and the nobility and highlights the limited role of racial or religious sentiments in the political life of the ruling class of the time
Sunset at Srirangapatnam
The Concept of Philosophy
Market, Freedom and the Illusions of Microcredit. Patronage, Caste, Class and Patriarchy in Rural South India
As a market tool, microcredit is expected to promote individual freedom, for women in particular. By drawing on a southern Indian case, this paper argues that microcredit is in fact shaped by the power structures it is supposed to eradicate. Even if they are partly reshaped, local structures of power remain unavoidable to protect populations (something that microcredit fails to do) but also to build the microcredit market and ensure its legitimac…
Unpayable debt
In recent decades rural South India has witnessed the profound effects of financialization, effects that include growing sexual puritanism, changing kinship patterns, and the redefinition of caste hierarchies. For Dalit women, these transformations have given rise to new forms of debt, sexuality, and sexual-economic exchanges. Although such exchanges can be compatible with sexual desire and pleasure, Dalit women are nonetheless trapped in new for…
Social histories of exclusion and moments of resistance
Locating the theorisation and practices of caste hierarchies within South Asian Islam with reference to high-caste Muslims (Ashrafs) versus Julaha weavers (Ajlafs), this article argues that class exploitation and class hegemony over the marginalised sections of Muslim society in North India were practised through caste stratifications, social hierarchies and land relations. The horizontal equality of ‘textual Islam’ was transformed into vertical …
Communities of skill in the age of capitalism
The role of skills has been eclipsed in the transition from an agrarian-craft economy rooted in hand-labour in small households to a modern political economy where productive work takes place outside the household, in offices and factories. Yet the ideological erasure of skilled work should not be confused with its actual disappearance. Precisely because such work was typically construed as private and unimportant, the embedded hierarchies and sk…
Weaving Hierarchies
This article discusses the complex nature of handloom weaving in market relations and the household production in the north Indian region of eastern Uttar Pradesh in the first half of the twentieth century through studying a Muslim weavers’ community known as Julahas. The entire community chain active in the process of handloom production in a micro-region was appropriated in a new relation of commodity production. Therefore, the article focuses …
Nobility under the Mughals (1628-1658)
In this book an attempt has been made to determine, tentively, the size and composition of the nobility during the reign of Shah Jahan. It also analyses amomg other things the nature of the mutual relationship that existed between the crown and the nobility and highlights the limited role of racial or religious sentiments in the political life of the ruling class of the time
The Concept of Philosophy
Sunset at Srirangapatnam
Nobility under the Mughals (1628-1658)
In this book an attempt has been made to determine, tentively, the size and composition of the nobility during the reign of Shah Jahan. It also analyses amomg other things the nature of the mutual relationship that existed between the crown and the nobility and highlights the limited role of racial or religious sentiments in the political life of the ruling class of the time
Negotiating India's Past
Indian Economy 1858–1914
Weaving Hierarchies
This article discusses the complex nature of handloom weaving in market relations and the household production in the north Indian region of eastern Uttar Pradesh in the first half of the twentieth century through studying a Muslim weavers’ community known as Julahas. The entire community chain active in the process of handloom production in a micro-region was appropriated in a new relation of commodity production. Therefore, the article focuses …
The Fuzzy Boundaries
This article addresses the fluid, changeable and ambiguous character of religious and cultural identities, held by Julahas; claiming different local and sectarian backgrounds. The Barelvi, Wahabi and Deobandi schools of Indian Islam provided a polarising platform to the Julaha identity discourse from the late nineteenth century onwards, leading to a wider ‘shift’ towards supra-caste, supra-locally-based concepts of community and collective religi…
Ways to Modernisation and Adaptation
This article is a study based on the United Provinces (UP) State Archive records on the early history of modern weaving schools in UP. Handloom weaving has been a major occupation in this region, diversified in skills, and involved some of the most skill-intensive types of textiles woven on the loom. Did the schools—as expected—formalise that knowledge to modernise it, bring it from the private domain to the public and encourage experiments upon …
Market, Freedom and the Illusions of Microcredit. Patronage, Caste, Class and Patriarchy in Rural South India
As a market tool, microcredit is expected to promote individual freedom, for women in particular. By drawing on a southern Indian case, this paper argues that microcredit is in fact shaped by the power structures it is supposed to eradicate. Even if they are partly reshaped, local structures of power remain unavoidable to protect populations (something that microcredit fails to do) but also to build the microcredit market and ensure its legitimac…
Social histories of exclusion and moments of resistance
Locating the theorisation and practices of caste hierarchies within South Asian Islam with reference to high-caste Muslims (Ashrafs) versus Julaha weavers (Ajlafs), this article argues that class exploitation and class hegemony over the marginalised sections of Muslim society in North India were practised through caste stratifications, social hierarchies and land relations. The horizontal equality of ‘textual Islam’ was transformed into vertical …
Unpayable debt
In recent decades rural South India has witnessed the profound effects of financialization, effects that include growing sexual puritanism, changing kinship patterns, and the redefinition of caste hierarchies. For Dalit women, these transformations have given rise to new forms of debt, sexuality, and sexual-economic exchanges. Although such exchanges can be compatible with sexual desire and pleasure, Dalit women are nonetheless trapped in new for…
Resisting the Destruction of Social Reproduction
Colonial Knowledge Economy
In existing historiography, the modernity discourse presents modern knowledge as being more economically efficient and technologically advanced compared to traditional skills. This theoretical lens has introduced a hierarchy of production and restructured the meaning of work and division of labour within the profession of weaving. Historically, the contexts of both the modern textile industry and traditional handloom weaving were interrelated in …
Communities of skill in the age of capitalism
The role of skills has been eclipsed in the transition from an agrarian-craft economy rooted in hand-labour in small households to a modern political economy where productive work takes place outside the household, in offices and factories. Yet the ideological erasure of skilled work should not be confused with its actual disappearance. Precisely because such work was typically construed as private and unimportant, the embedded hierarchies and sk…
Caste or Christ
This article offers empirical research using qualitative methodology to identify the presence of the caste system in the Seventh‐day Adventist Church in South Asia. The findings are based on the interviews of ten participants aged 18 to 36 from at least four language groups: Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, and Malayalam. All the participants volunteered to participate in the study. Three among the ten did face‐to‐face interviews, and the remaining seven pa…
A Missiological Exploration of Luke 4
This article expands on a prior study on caste discrimination in the Seventh‐day Adventist (SDA) Church in India. Rooted in a missiological framework, it examines the transformative potential of Luke 4:18 in addressing the challenges faced by marginalized communities in the SDA context. The article draws on findings from earlier qualitative research on historical roots, missiological perspectives, and the relevance of biblical passages to inform …
From Home to Karkhana
The recent debate on de-industrialization in India centres on why certain traditional community economies, such as that of the Julaha (Muslim weaving community), persisted throughout colonial economic disruptions, instead of embracing mechanization and industrialization. The persistence of the Julaha community’s handloom economy in the early twentieth-century United Provinces was not simply a matter of resistance to change but a result of embedde…
Refashioning the fashion
This article explores how changing textile fashions and evolving consumer tastes reshaped handloom production in North India between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. British imperialism and industrialization transformed the social practices of textile design, production and consumption in colonial India. The implications of these new fashion arrangements – often overlooked – led both consumers and producers to engage, consciousl…
Childhood, politics, and socio-cultural positionality
Childhood is a socially constructed phase of life shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces. While often perceived as a natural and universal experience, childhood is deeply influenced by governmental policies, socio-cultural norms, and historical contexts. This paper explores how political structures and socio-cultural positionality shape childhood experiences across different societies. By drawing from theories of social construction, …
Ethnobotanical knowledge of wetlands dependent communities of Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, Nepal
Background: This study documents the ethnobotanical knowledge of wetlands dependent ethnic communities (Bantar/Sardar, Mallaha, Musahar, Rajput, and Tharu) residing in the buffer zones of the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve (KTWR) which includes sections of the Sapta Koshi River and its floodplains. Despite KTWR’s ecological importance, systematic research on traditional plant use remains limited. This work addresses that gap by capturing community-…
Pious Labor
The historiography of artisanal labor in colonial India reflects a dynamic and evolving field. While traditional Marxist interpretations highlight the detrimental effects of colonialism on indigenous industries, revisionist scholars and recent research offer a more nuanced view, acknowledging the resilience and adaptability of certain sectors and the multifaceted nature of economic change during this period. Yet “De-industrialization versus Moder…
Political science (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Caste (8 works) · Colonialism (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Economics (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · History (5 works) · Politics (5 works)