Sanjay Subrahmanyam (born 21 May 1961) is a historian of the early modern period. He is the author of several books and publications. He holds the Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Social Sciences at UCLA which he joined in 2004. [1]
Sanjay Subrahmanyam (born 21 May 1961) is a historian of the early modern period. He is the author of several books and publications. He holds the Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Social Sciences at UCLA which he joined in 2004. [1]
Sanjay Subramanyam is the son of K. Subrahmanyam and his wife Sulochana. [2] He was brought up in a Tamil Brahmin family, [3] [4] His father was a prominent expert on strategic affairs. Sanjay has an elder sister, and two elder brothers: Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who retired from the Indian Foreign Service as its head, and serves now as India's Minister of External Affairs in the BJP government; and S. Vijay Kumar, who followed their father into the Indian Administrative Service. [5] Subrahmanyam is married to a UCLA historian of modern France, Caroline Ford.
Sanjay Subrahmanyam graduated with a BA (Hons) in economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi. [6] [7] He received his MA and PhD in 1987 in economic history from the Delhi School of Economics on the topic of "Trade and the Regional Economy of South India, c. 1550–1650".
Subrahmanyam taught economic history and comparative economic development at the Delhi School of Economics till 1995. He then moved to Paris as Directeur d'études in the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, where he taught history of the Mughal empire, and the comparative history of early modern empires till 2002.[ citation needed ] In 2002, Subrahmanyam moved to Oxford University as the first holder of the newly created Chair in Indian History and Culture. In 2004 he became the Navin and Pratima Doshi Chair in Indian History at UCLA, and a year later, in 2005, he became the founding Director of UCLA's Center for India and South Asia. [2] In 2014 he was appointed to the Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Social Sciences at UCLA.[ citation needed ]
In 2012, Subrahmanyam was awarded the first Infosys Prize in Humanities, for his 'path-breaking contribution to history'. [8] He also served as a Humanities jury member for the prize from 2019. [9]
He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 and as a corresponding fellow to the British Academy in 2016. Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania selected Dr. Subrahmanyam as the 2009 Mary Flexner Lecturer. He was elected professor and to the chair Histoire Globale de la Première Modernité at the Collège de France in 2013.
On 6 February 2017, Subrahmanyam received an honoris causa doctorate from the Université catholique de Louvain. [10]
The Martine Aublet Prize for 2018 was awarded to Subrahmanyam for his book, L'inde sous les yeux de l'Europe: mots, peuples, empires (Alma Editeur, 2018), by the Musée de Quai Branly. [11]
In February 2019, Sanjay Subrahmanyam was awarded the Dan David Prize for History (jointly with Kenneth Pomeranz, Chicago). [12]
In 2022, Sanjay Subrahmanyam was awarded the Comité International des Sciences Historiques (CISH) Prize in History at the XXIII Congress of the Historical Sciences in Poznan, Poland. [13]
Historian Srinath Raghavan wrote of Subrahmanyam in 2013, [14]
His scholarship spans the entire early modern period, from the 15th to 18th centuries CE, and more besides. Similarly, his geographical expertise stretches from South, South-East and West Asia to Western Europe and Latin America. Then there are his technical skills, ranging from statistical analysis of economic data to interpretation of literary and visual materials. Although Subrahmanyam began as an economic historian, he has branched out to work on political, intellectual and cultural history. He works in over ten European and Asian languages and draws on sources from a dazzling array of archives. Finally, there is his sheer productivity. Subrahmanyam seems to write top-class history faster than most of us can read.
Anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. The earliest known human remains in South Asia date to 30,000 years ago. Sedentariness began in South Asia around 7000 BCE; by 4500 BCE, settled life had spread, and gradually evolved into the Indus Valley Civilisation, which flourished between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE in present-day Pakistan and north-western India. Early in the second millennium BCE, persistent drought caused the population of the Indus Valley to scatter from large urban centres to villages. Indo-Aryan tribes moved into the Punjab from Central Asia in several waves of migration. The Vedic Period of the Vedic people in northern India was marked by the composition of their extensive collections of hymns (Vedas). The social structure was loosely stratified via the varna system, incorporated into the highly evolved present-day Jāti system. The pastoral and nomadic Indo-Aryans spread from the Punjab into the Gangetic plain. Around 600 BCE, a new, interregional culture arose; then, small chieftaincies (janapadas) were consolidated into larger states (mahajanapadas). Second urbanization took place, which came with the rise of new ascetic movements and religious concepts, including the rise of Jainism and Buddhism. The latter was synthesized with the preexisting religious cultures of the subcontinent, giving rise to Hinduism.
Vijayanagara was a city at the modern location of Hampi, in the Indian state of Karnataka. Vijayanagara was the capital city of the historic Vijayanagara Empire. Located on the banks of the Tungabhadra River, it spread over a large area and included sites in the Vijayanagara district, the Ballari district, and others around these districts. A part of Vijayanagara ruins known as the Group of Monuments at Hampi has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Indo-Persian culture refers to a cultural synthesis present on the Indian subcontinent. It is characterised by the absorption or integration of Persian aspects into the various cultures of modern-day republics of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. The earliest introduction of Persian influence and culture to the subcontinent was by various Muslim Turko-Persian rulers, such as the 11th-century Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi, rapidly pushed for the heavy Persianization of conquered territories in northwestern Indian subcontinent, where Islamic influence was also firmly established. This socio-cultural synthesis arose steadily through the Delhi Sultanate from the 13th to 16th centuries, and the Mughal Empire from then onwards until the 19th century. Various dynasties of Turkic, local Indian and Afghan origin patronized the Persian language and contributed to the development of a Persian culture in India. The Delhi Sultanate developed their own cultural and political identity which built upon Persian and Indic languages, literature and arts, which formed the basis of an Indo-Muslim civilization.
Around 500 BC, the Mahajanapadas minted punch-marked silver coins. The period was marked by intensive trade activity and urban development. By 300 BC, the Maurya Empire had united most of the Indian subcontinent including Tamilakam, which was ruled by Three Crowned Kings. The resulting political unity and military security allowed for a common economic system and enhanced trade and commerce, with increased agricultural productivity.
Medieval India refers to a long period of post-classical history of the Indian subcontinent between the "ancient period" and "modern period". It is usually regarded as running approximately from the breakup of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century CE to the start of the early modern period in 1526 with the start of the Mughal Empire, although some historians regard it as both starting and finishing later than these points. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the early medieval and late medieval eras.
BukkaRaya I was an emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire from the Sangama Dynasty. He was a son of Bhavana Sangama, the chieftain of a cowherd pastoralist community, Yadava people|Golla]] descent. The first Bahmani-Vijayanagar War was occurred during the reign of Bukka Raya I, in which he was besieged, and sued for peace.
Harihara I, also called Hakka and Vira Harihara I, was the founder of the Vijayanagara Empire, which he ruled from 1336 to 1356 CE. He and his successors formed the Sangama dynasty, the first of four dynasties to rule the empire. He was the eldest son of Bhavana Sangama, the chieftain of a cowherd pastoralist community, who claimed gadaria or descent.
Daud Khan Panni or simply Daud Khan, was an Pashtun nobleman and military commander of the Mughal Empire. Historians Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam characterise him as an important figure of Mughal history spanning the later years of emperor Aurangzeb, to the early rule of Farrukhsiyar.
Colonel Antoine-Louis Henri de Polier (1741–1795) was a Swiss adventurer, art collector, military engineer and soldier who made his fortune in India in the eighteenth century. He was the father of Count Adolphe de Polier.
Muzaffar Alam is the George V. Bobrinskoy Professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.
Rajat Kanta Ray is a historian of South Asian history, specializing in Modern Indian history.
The political history of the region on the Deccan Plateau in west-central peninsular India that was later divided into Mysore state and Coorg province saw many changes after the fall of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire in 1565. The rise of Sultan Haidar Ali in 1761 introduced a new period.
The political history of Mysore and Coorg (1761–1799) is the political history of the contiguous historical regions of Mysore State and Coorg province on the Deccan Plateau in west-central peninsular India from the time of the rise of Haidar Ali in 1761 to that of the death of his son Tipu Sultan in 1799.
The political history of Mysore and Coorg (1800–1947) is the political history of the contiguous historical regions of Mysore state and Coorg province located on the Deccan Plateau in west-central peninsular India, beginning with the acceptance of British suzerainty in 1800 to the independence of India in 1947.
The Mughal Empire was an early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of present-day Assam and Bangladesh in the east, and the uplands of the Deccan Plateau in South India.
Mughal artillery included a variety of cannons, rockets, and mines employed by the Mughal Empire. This gunpowder technology played an important role in the formation and expansion of the empire. In the opening lines of Abul Fazl's famous text Ain-i-Akbari, he claims that "except for the Mediterranean/Ottoman territories (Rumistan), in no other place was gunpowder artillery available in such abundance as in the Mughal Empire." Thereby subtly referring to the superiority of the empire's artillery over the Safavids and Shaibanids. During the reign of the first three Timurid rulers of India—Babur, Humayun, and Akbar—gunpowder artillery had "emerged as an important equipage of war, contributing significantly to the establishment of a highly centralized state structure under Akbar and to the consolidation of Mughal rule in the conquered territories."
John F. Richards was a historian of South Asia and in particular of the Mughal Empire. He was Professor of History at Duke University, North Carolina, and a recipient in 2007 of the Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies Award. He participated in and encouraged a multi-disciplinary, multi-regional approach to studies.
The Deccanis or Deccani people are an Indo-Aryan ethno-religious community of Deccani-speaking Muslims who inhabit or are from the Deccan region of Western and Southern India. The community traces its origins to the shifting of the Delhi Sultanate's capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in 1327 during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq. Further ancestry can also be traced from immigrant Muslims referred to as Afaqis, also known as Pardesis who came from Central Asia, Iraq and Iran and had settled in the Deccan region during the Bahmani Sultanate (1347). The migration of Muslim Hindavi-speaking people to the Deccan and intermarriage with the local Hindus whom converted to Islam, led to the creation of a new community of Hindustani-speaking Muslims, known as the Deccani, who would come to play an important role in the politics of the Deccan. Their language, Deccani, emerged as a language of linguistic prestige and culture during the Bahmani Sultanate, further evolving in the Deccan Sultanates.
Dirk Herbert Arnold Kolff is a Dutch historian and Indologist. Born at Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Kolff earned a doctorate degree from the Leiden University in 1983 with a doctoral thesis on the research subject of armed peasantry in northern India. He is a professor emeritus of modern South Asian history and the former Chair of Indian History at the Leiden University.
The economy in the Indian Subcontinent during the Mughal Empire era performed just as it did in ancient times, though now it would face the stress of extensive regional tensions. It was described as large and prosperous. India producing about 28% of the world's industrial output up until the 18th century. While at the start of 17th century, the economic expansion within Mughal territories become the largest and surpassed Qing dynasty and Europe, where from Bengal Subah alone, the province statistically has contributed to 12% of Gross domestic product. by 1700s, Mughals had approximately 24 percent share of world's economy. They grew from 22.7% in 1600, which at the end of 16th century, has surpassed China to become the world's largest GDP.
