Talks, Awards & Visits 

Select Talks and Presentations

1. Presented a paper on "A Synoptic View of the Formation of Assamese Identity, 1826-1947‟ at the International Conference on Peace and Reconciliation organized by York St. John University College,UK in August 2006.

2.  Presented a paper on "Politics of Language: The Making of the Assamese Identity in the late 19th Century‟, at the ICHR International Seminar on Identity, Emotions and Culture: Languages and Literature in the Subcontinent, c.900-c.2000 organized by the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) at the North East Hill University (NEHU), Shillong in May 2007.

3.  Invited Speaker in the ICHR-NERC Lecture Series Programme organized by the ICHR- NERC (North East Regional Centre) Guwahati in July 2007.

4. Invited speaker in the Seminar on "Cultures and Identities in Northeast India‟, organized by the Northeast India Centre for Studies in Local Ecology, Culture and History, West Bengal State University (WBSU), Barasat in December 2009.

5. Invited speaker in the UGC sponsored State Seminar on "From Regional Identity to Regionalism: A Fresh Look‟, organized by the Department of History, Mahisadal Raj College and Gram Janapad, Purba Medinipur, West Bengal in January 2011.

6.  Invited speaker in the UGC-Sponsored National Seminar on “Colonial and Post-Colonial Eastern India: New Perspectives” organized by the Department of History, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata in March 2011.

7. Delivered a talk as Invited Speaker on "Education in Assam and Bengal: A Comparative Nineteenth-Century Perspective‟, at the International Seminar on "Comparative Colonial Middle Classes‟, organized by the Department of History, Jadavpur University in March 2013.

8. Invited Talk on "Colonial Assam: A brief Overview of Educational Polices of the Raj" for India ki Khoj, Annual Winter Symposium organized for students of IITGN and Cal Tech, USA, IIT Gandhinagar, December 2014, 

9. Presented a paper on "Representing Traditions, Recasting Worship: Some Aspects of Religious Change in Nineteenth-century Assam", ANU International Religion Conference on ‘Religious Transformation in Modern Asian’, Australian National University, Canberra, April 7-9, 2016.

10. Presented a paper on "Christian Missionaries and the Conversion of Language in Nineteenth-century Assam", at the 22nd Himalayan Languages Symposium, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, June 8-10, 2016.

11. Invited Speaker on "Representing Language and Traditions: A Nineteenth century Perspective from Colonial Assam", at Central University Gujarat, August 2016.

12. Presented a paper on "Recasting Traditions: Religion, State and the Provincial Elite in British Assam", at the Conference on 'Reimagining Religion, Caste and Social Justice in South Asia/ The Third International Conference on the Unfinished Legacy of B.R. Ambedkar', at Brandeis University, Boston, MA, USA, April 28-30, 2017.

13. Presented a paper on "Colonialism and the Re-fashioning of Social Identities in British Assam", at the 46th Annual South Asia Conference, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, October 26-29, 2017.

14. Presented a paper on "The Cultural Politics of Writing a Religious History in Nineteenth-century Assam", at the 46th Annual South Asia Conference (Pre-conference on ‘Futures of Northeast Indian Studies’), University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, October 26-28, 2017.

15. Delivered a talk as Invited Speaker, on "Historical Methodology in the Context of Reading the Archive and Textual Sources for Understanding and Sources for Understanding and Interpreting the Past", at the Workshop on ‘Capacity Building in Research Methodology’, Jointly organized by the Indian Council of Social Science Research and Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad, March 5  -14, 2018.

16. Delivered a talk as Invited Speaker, on "Gandhi and the Sardar:  A Historical Appraisal", at the Rashtriya Ekta Diwas/ National Unity Day function, at IIT Gandhinagar, October 31, 2018.

17. Delivered a talk as Invited Speaker, on "Leading the Indian National Movement: A Historical Assessment of Mahatma Gandhi’s Role", as part of “Gandhi at 150” A weeklong Distinguished Lecture Series, Centre for Gandhian Thought and Peace Studies, School of Social Sciences, organized by Central University of Gujarat, January 7-11, 2019.

18.  Invited to deliver a talk on "Remembering Sardar", as part of the Rashtriya Ekta Diwas/ National Unity Day celebrations, at IIT Gandhinagar on October 31, 2019.

19. Delivered a talk on '"Indigeneity" as a theoretical paradigm for studying community practices in North-east India: Challenges and the Question of Choice", as  Panel Chair, for the panel on “Narratives of Belonging in Borderlands Through Perspectives of Indigeneity and Visual Representations’, at the Association for Asian Studies Conference on ‘Asia at the Crossroads: Solidarity through Scholarship’, August 31 - September 04, 2020 (held online from Kobe, Japan).

20.  Invited Speaker to the Delhi University, Department of History Seminar Series, (November 24).

21. Resource Person, at the UGC sponsored Refresher Course on Research Methods in the Social Sciences; Organized by the Dept. of Geography, Gauhati University, Feb 2022.

22.  Invited Speaker at the International Symposium on Pathways to Peace, organised by the Sociology Department, Nagaland University, on may 8, 2023.

23. Presented a paper on  ‘Health, Religion and Politics: Re-assessing the Role of Christian Missionaries in Colonial Assam’, at the International Seminar on Religious Practices Across Himalayan Spaces Minorities in Mountains, Meditations in Monasteries Monks and mysticism, Mendicants and Medicines, organised by Salesian College, Darjeeling, St. Anthony’s College, Shillong, Jadavpur University, Kolkata and Brinfaith Collaborative Research Project, university of Hongkong, and held at St Anthony’s College, Shillong, May 5-7, 2023.

24. Presented a paper on ‘The Worship of Ashaan Bibi and the Cultural Resonances of Partition in Bengal’, for the panel on ‘Intermedial Pasts: Documenting South Asian Folk Cultures across Oceans, Borders, and Media’, at the Association for Asian Studies Conference, organised by AAS-in-Asia and Kyungpook National University, in Daegu, Korea, from June 24-27, 2023.

      Awards and Visits

    1. Awarded Foreign Travel and Maintenance Grant by the Indian Council of Historical Research for consultation of records at the Oriental and India Office Collections of the British Library, London (Aug 2006).

           2. Awarded “Short-Term Residential Post-Doctoral Fellowship” for a period of 15 months (January 2010 to March 2011) by Ford Foundation, India, at the Centre For Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC).

           3. Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute For the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Gottingen (Jun - July 2016).