Research

2024. “Becoming the Father of Modern India: Rammohun Roy and the Politics of Paternity” The Journal of Hindu Studies doi: 10.1093/jhs/hiad032.

Abstract: This article examines the posthumous reception of India’s most famous religious reformer, hailed as the ‘Father of Modern India’, Raja Rammohun Roy, from the 1830s to the present decade. During the late colonial period, the British administration and Bengali elites used class networks and print capitalism to establish Roy as the father to show compradorship amidst calls for independence. After independence, the INC retained Roy to counter the rise of more popular Hindu movements. In the period of INC decline, the BJP elevated Swami Vivekananda instead of Roy as a representative of majoritarian Hinduism. Economic and political coalitions in control of legitimating institutions elevate and sustain fathers as positive cultural symbols in response to competing claims. By emphasising party competition and issue ownership within multi-national federalism, this article complements decolonisation, cult-of-personality, and regime change as explanations for the rise and fall of public fathers.

2022. “The ‘Glorious’ Revolution’s Inglorious Religious Commitment: Why Parliamentary Rule Failed to Secure Religious Liberty” Social Science History doi: 10.1017/ssh.2022.15 (with Steven Pfaff)

Abstract: Many scholars contend that the “Glorious” Revolution of 1688 restrained governmental abuses in Britain by preventing the Crown from engaging in irresponsible behavior. However, the question of whether it imposed similar restraints on Parliament has received limited scrutiny. This oversight applies in particular to the religious sphere and outside of England. Rather than create the general conditions for liberty, we contend that the institutional legacy of the Revolution of 1688 was biased toward those in the winning coalition and that its positive effect on liberty is overstated. Analyzing the institutional legacy of the Glorious Revolution on religion in Scotland, we use narrative evidence and systematic evaluation of legislation to show that, rather than establishing the conditions for religious liberty in Britain, the revolution transferred power from one denomination to the other. The arbitrary religious repression symptomatic of the prerevolutionary Crown persisted because the religious liberties enshrined in the Revolution depended largely on whether a group was a member of its winning coalition. Whereas the Crown and the Episcopalians suppressed the Presbyterians prior to 1688, afterward an alliance between the Scottish Presbyterians and the English Parliament reinstated Presbyterianism as the established Scottish Church. This reversal allowed the Presbyterians to suppress the Episcopalians. Religious tolerance and attendant civil rights expanded only with secularization in the nineteenth century when the political representation of other denominations and religions increased and factionalism undercut Presbyterian monopoly.

2022 “Church Politics, Sectarianism, and Judicial Terror: The Case of Witchcraft Prosecution in Scotland, 1563 − 1736” Explorations in Economic History 84 : 101447. (with Steven Pfaff)

Abstract: We examine a tumultuous period in Scottish history beginning from the Reformation in 1560 until a few years after the Revolution of 1688. During this period, the Crown repeatedly provoked political crises by attempting to impose an episcopal structure on the Church of Scotland. Using time series data of witch accusations, we find that the Scottish Presbyterians were substantially more active in persecuting alleged witches during periods when they were excluded from power. Although monopoly churches can be instruments of state-making and social order, our results show that the disciplinary instruments of an established church can be turned against the state. In polities divided by factional religious conflict the suppression of sectarian groups can lead them to impose religious discipline as a counterweight to state formation.

2017. “Can Religious Norms Undermine Effective Property Rights: Evidence from Inheritance Rights of Widows in Colonial India” British Journal of Political Science 47(3) : 479−499. (British Academy Brian Barry Prize in Political Science 2015, jointly awarded by the Cambridge University Press)

Abstract: Religious norms can undermine the effects of property rights institutions. Districts in colonial India that provided widows with rights to inherit the joint-family property of their deceased husband had significantly higher widow immolations than districts that did not. Religious elites (Brahmins) burnt disproportionately more widows, and widow immolations were higher in regions with a higher density of religious elites. The findings indicate that egalitarianism requires egalitarians. Elite norms embedded in religion can mediate the effects of property rights and lead to negative consequences.

Source: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/prizes-medals/brian-barry-prize-political-science/