Ph.D, Cambridge, 1990
M.Phil CHS/SSS JNU, 1987
Modern and Contemporary Indian History
Crime, law and policing in colonial India; identity protocols, practices and technologies; trans-national history; borders and border-crossing; India in World War one.
1983-2000, Lecturer and Senior Lecturer, Miranda House, Delhi University
2000-2001, Associate Professor, Aligarh Muslim University
1.1.2002,Associate Professor JNU
1.1.2004, Professor JNU
* Fellow, Program in Agrarian Studies, Yale University, 5 September-6 May, 2006
* L. M Singhvi Fellowship, Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge, 13 May-13 August, 2008
* Fellowship, Lichtenberg Kolleg, University of Goettingen, Germany, 30April-1 Aug-2011 (date correction)
* Senior Research Fellowship, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi 2015-2016
* Fellow,,Institute of Advanced Studies, Nantes, France ( 1 May 2016-30 June 2016)
* Honorary position, ‘Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research,’ United Services Institution, Delhi, India. 25 Feb 2019
* Award of short- term ( non-stipendiary) ‘International Visiting Fellowship’ at the Institute of Advanced Study, Warwick University, February 2019.
Journal advisory
* Member, Advisory Board, Crime, history and societies, CESDIP, Paris
* Member, Advisory Board, Modern Asian Studies Cambridge University, UK.
Academic Director (with Prof Leo Lucassen, Leiden and Prof. Adam .McKeown, Columbia ) of a four-day student summer-workshop titled World Wide Asia: Asian Flows, Global Impacts, IIAS and Leiden University, 27 Aug-1 Sept 2012.
Books
1.A Despotism of Law: Crime and Justice in Early Colonial India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1998. Paperback, 2000.
2.The Coolie’s Great War: Indian Labour in a Global Conflict 1914-21, Hurst, UK; OUP, USA; Harper Collins, Delhi 2020.
Articles
3.* "Settle, mobilise, verify: identification practices in colonial India", Studies in History, August 2000, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp.151-198.
4.“The Great War and a ‘Proper’ Passport for the Colony: Border-Crossing in British India, c.1882–1922”, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol 50, 7 Aug 2013,10.1177/0019464613494621
5."Punished by Surveillance: Policing ‘dangerousness’ in colonial India, 1872–1918", Modern Asian Studies Vol. 49, Issue 2, March 2015, pp.241-269.DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X13000462
1. "The Short Career of the Indian Labour Corps in France, 1917–1919", International Labor and Working-Class History, 87, March 2015, pp 27-62. doi:10.1017/S014754791500006X.
2."The ‘Rare Infliction’: the Abolition of Flogging in the Indian Army, circa 1835-1920", Law and History Review, August, 2016, Vol 34, No.3, pp. 783-818 • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S073824801600016X
3. Singha R. (2018) "India’s Silver Bullets: War Loans and War Propaganda, 1917–18." In: Abbenhuis M., Atkinson N., Baird K., Romano G. (eds) The Myriad Legacies of 1917. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73685-3