Professor Crispin Bates (MA, PhD, FRAS, FRHS)

Biography

Background

I am a graduate of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, where I completed my PhD on the social and economic history of colonial central India. I was first appointed to a lectureship in modern South Asian History at Edinburgh University in 1989. Previously, I held a Research Fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge. I have also been a visiting Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris (1992), a Visiting Professor at Calcutta University, a JSPS Research Fellow at the Institute for Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo (2002-3), a Visiting Professor (2009-10) at the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan,  Visiting Professsor, Department of History, University of Beijing (March-April 2013), Visiting Professor, Hitotsubashi University, Japan (September 2016-August 2017), Ushioda Visiting Professorship, Humanities Centre, Tokyo University, Japan (Jan 2019-April 2019), Honorary Senior Visiting Fellowship, Netaji Institute, Kolkata 2022, Honorary Professor Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya, January- December 2023, and Honorary Professor Graduate School of Asian and African Studies, Kyoto University, March 2024 to date.

I have a strong and highly successful track record in MSc and PhD training, supervising research students in diverse subjects relating to modern and contemporary South Asian (particularly Indian) history as well as more general topics in imperial, colonial and postcolonial history. I teach on the MSc Programme in History in HCA and have also organised and taught on M.Sc. programmes on South Asia in the School of Social and Political Science.

External appointments

Former Director, Edinburgh University Centre for South Asian Studies (SPS) (2003-2015)

Member of the modern history review college of the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council.

Series Editor, Routledge Edinburgh South Asian Studies, Routledge New Horizons in South Asian Studies, and Global South Asians (Cambridge University Press)

Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Member of the Editorial Board for the journal History Compass and Advisory Board of the journal South Asian Diaspora

Member of the Indian Association of Labour Historians, the British Association for South Asian Studies, and the European Association for South Asian Studies

Regular appearances, discussing current events in South Asia, on BBC Radio Scotland.

Useful Links

Responsibilities & affiliations

Edinburgh Centre for South Asian Studies,  Edinburgh Centre for Global History

Undergraduate teaching

I have taught the following courses:

  • India 1700-1947: Raj, Rebellion and Ryot (3/4 MA)
  • Postcolonial South Asia (3/4 MA)
  • Gandhi and Popular Movements in India 1915-1950 (4MA)
  • Global Connections
  • History in Theory (postcolonial theory)
  • History in Practice
  • South Asia Studies 2a and 2b (SPS)
  • Asia, Africa, Australasia History 2

Postgraduate teaching

I  have taught:

  • South Asian Studies: Issues and Debates  (SPS)
  • South Asian Studies: Concepts and Theoretical Underpinnings  (SPS)
  • Gender and Empire (HCA)
  • The Politics of Historiography in Postcolonial South Asia (HCA)

Currently teaching:

MSc Historical Methodology (Writing Subaltern History in Colonial Asia)

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I welcome applications for PhD supervision, especially in the field of Indian and Indian Ocean social history in the modern and early modern periods. 

Current PhD students supervised

Azrin Afrin - PhD - Chittagonian Migration to Colonial Myanmar  - Primary

Naz Tharia - PhD - Agency and Resistance among Women Indentured Migrants in Fiji - Co-supervisor

Saurabh Hatkar - PhD - Identity and Mobilisation among the Dhangar nomadic tribe of Western India - Secondary

Past PhD students supervised

Kim, Dongkyuk - PhD - Missionaries in Mysore - Secondary - 2025

Naureen, Asma - PhD - Media and the Partition in Punjab - Primary - 2024

Parr, Rosalind - MScR/PhD - Cosmopolitanism and Indian women nationalists - Primary - 2013/2018

Roy, Piyush - PhD - The Rasa tradition in Indian Cinema - Primary - 2017

Ellis, Catriona - PhD - Children and childhood in the Madras Presidency, 1920s-1930s - Primary – 2016

Lewis, Caroline - PhD - Women missionaries in India - Primary - 2014

Dhillon, Rajwinder - MScR/PhD - Crime and Police in Colonial Bengal - Primary - 2009/2013

Kakkar, Ankur - MScR - Why did the Orientalists lose the Indian Education Debate of 1835? - Primary - 2013

Soherwordi, Syed - MScR/PhD - Pakistan Foreign Policy Formulation, 1947-64: An analysis on institutional interaction between American foreign policy making bodies and the Pakistan Army - Primary - 2008/2010

Singh, Gajendra - MScR/PhD - Between Self and Soldier: Indian Soldiers and Their Testimony During the Two World Wars - Primary - 2005/2010

Lloyd, Thomas - MScR/PhD - States of Exception: sovereignty and counter-insurgency in British India, Ireland and Kenya circa 1810-1960 - Primary - 2005/2010

Malhotra, Ashok - MScR/PhD - The Making and Consumption of British India Fictions, 1772-1823 - Primary - 2005/2010

Major, Andrea - MScR/PhD -  British interpretation of Sati (widow-burning) in India - Primary - 2024.

Mills, James - PhD - Lunatic asylum in British India, 1857 to 1880 : colonialism, medicine and power - Primary - 1997

Anderson, Clare - PhD - Kala pani: Indian convicts in Mauritius, 1815-1853 - Secondary - 1997

 

 

Research summary

  • Places: 
  • South Asia and Indian Ocean

Themes: 

  • Comparative & Global History
  • Economic History
  • Imperialism
  • Politics
  • Society
  • War

Periods: 

  • Eighteenth Century
  • Nineteenth Century
  • Twentieth Century & After

Watch a short video of Professor Bates speaking about his research interests - Media Hopper

Current research interests

I am currently working on a monograph entitled 'Rethinking South Asian Colonial Labour Migration', and a co-authored volume with Dr Marina Carter entitled 'Subalterns, Rebellion and Migration '- addressing the legacies of the Uprising of 1857. I am planning an edited book entitled 'Genealogies of Migration', and I am series editor with Daud Ali and Nandini Chatterjee of the six-volume 'Cultural History of South Asia', forthcoming in 2027 with Bloomsbury Press. I am also researching and writing on Adivasi (tribal) art and the representation and portrayal of Adivasis in Indian museums and am a member of the Advisory Committee for the Edinburgh-based AHRC project 'Decolonising the Museum'.

Past research interests

I have conducted many years of research in provincial and district archives in the subcontinent, mostly in Madhya Pradesh (the largest state in central India), and have written numerous research articles and book contributions on the social and economic history of this region, with particular reference to the peasants and adivasis or tribals who live there. My other research interests include Indian labour and labour migration, Gandhi and the Indian Independence Movement, Orientalism and colonial discourse, and the study of social, economic and political movements in contemporary India. 
In the late 1990s I was part of an Edinburgh consortium engaged in a project concerning village participation in Indian forest management, funded by the ESRC. In 2026--2008 I was the principal investigator in a major AHRC-funded research project entitled 'Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857'. I was also the coordinator of an international network of scholars working on 1857, funded by the British Academy. In 2015-18, I was Principal Investigator in another large collaborative AHRC research project "'Becoming Coolies": rethinking the origins of the Indian ocean labour diaspora' - www.coolitude.shca.ed.ac.uk From Sept 2019-March 2023 I was Co-I in the AHRC Research Project ' The Other from Within: Anthropology and the Birth of the Nation '

Books  and Edited Publications

Guest Editor, Crossing the Indian Ocean: the oceanic flow of cultures and ideas,  Monsoon, 3, 2 (Nov 2025).

C. Bates (ed). Beyond Indenture: Agency and Resistance in the Colonial South Asian Diaspora (Cambridge University 2024).

C. Bates and Ashutosh Kumar (eds.), Girmityas and the Global Indian Diaspora (Cambridge University Press, 2024)

C. Bates, M. Carter and Khal Torabully. Coolitude, the concept, its resonances and afterlives. Special issue of Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies. 2023. Vol. 3(1):1-13.

C. Bates and M. Carter (ed.), Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857: Volume VII: Documents of the Indian Uprising (New Delhi: Sage, 2017).

C.Bates and M.Mio (eds), Cities in South Asia (London: Routledge New Horizons in South Asian Studies, 2015)

C.Bates, A.Tanabe and M.Mio (eds), Human and International Security in India  (London: Routledge New Horizons in South Asian Studies, 2015)

C. Bates (ed.), Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857: Volume VI: Perception, Narration and Reinvention: The Pedagogy and Historiography of the Indian Uprising (SAGE Publications, 2014).

C. Bates and A. Shah, co-editors, Savage attack: tribal insurgency in India (New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2014).

C. Bates (ed.) , Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857 - Volume V: Muslim, Dalit and Subaltern Narratives (SAGE Publications, 2014)

C. Bates & G. Rand (ed.) , Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857 - Volume IV: Military Aspects of the Indian Uprising (SAGE Publications, 2013)

C. Bates & M. Carter (ed.), Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857 - Volume III: Global Perspectives (SAGE Publications, 2013)

C. Bates & A. Major (ed.), Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857 - Volume II: Britain and the Indian Uprising (SAGE Publications, 2013)

C. Bates (ed.) , Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857 - Volume I: Anticipations and Experiences in the Locality (SAGE Publications, 2013)

C. Bates, Subalterns and Raj: South Asia since 1600 (Routledge, 2007)

C. Bates (ed.), Beyond Representation: constructions of identity in colonial and postcolonial India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005).

C. Bates, co-editor with Subho Basu, Rethinking Indian Political Institutions (London: Anthem Press, 2005).

C. Bates (ed),  Community, Empire and Migration: South Asians in Diaspora (Palgrave, UK hb, 2001 & New Delhi: Orient Longman pb, 2003).

 

Articles and Book Chapters

‘Chettiars and the Churning of Identities in the Colonial Indian Ocean Diaspora’ (with M. Carter), Senri Ethnological Studies 114: 113–130 (2024) “Gyres”, Indian Ocean and Beyond: Discovering the Indian Ocean World, edited by Hideaki Suzuki and Minoru Mio.

‘The Slow Death of the Diorama: Tribal and Ethnographic Museums in India since Independence’ (with A. Ikegame), South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 47(1), 181–205 (2024).

‘The History of South Asian Global Migration’, The Cambridge History of Global Migration (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

‘Interrogating Orientalism: Hindu Festivals and Travellers’ Tales in the Colonial Indian Ocean’ (with M. Carter), The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Volume 51 Issue 2 (2023): 300-322.

‘Trust in the Indian Labour Diaspora’ (with M. Carter), Journal of Migration History Vol. 7: 2 (2021): 143-69.

‘Remigration of Indian Subalterns in the Colonial Indian Ocean’(with M. Carter), Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Vol. 22: 1 (2021).

‘Kala Pani Revisited: Indian Labour Migrants and the Sea Voyage’ (with M. Carter), Journal of Indentureship 1, no. 1 (2021): 34–62.

‘Representations and Misrepresentations of the Colonial South Asian Diaspora’, in J. Vijaya Maharaj and Radica Mahase (eds.), Global Indian Diaspora: charting new frontiers (vol II), New Delhi: Manohar, 2021.

‘Contours of the Indian Ocean Labour Diaspora’, Newsletter of the Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund, Mauritius, December 2017.

‘Migration in the time of empire’, Open Democracy (December 2017)

‘La grande peur des cipayes’, in Les Mondes de L’Inde, LHistoire, no. 437-438 (Paris, July-August 2017), 60–64.

‘Eine Geschichte des Versagens: Die kaum erzählte Seite der Teilung’ [A History of Failure: the scarcely told story of Partition] in Bitter kinship - intimate enmity: 70 years of Partition, SÜDASIEN (Bonn: July 2017),  20-24.

‘Some Thoughts on the Representation and Misrepresentation of the Colonial South Asian Labour Diaspora’, South Asian Studies, 2017, 33(1), 7–22.

‘Sirdars as intermediaries in nineteenth century Indian Ocean indentured labour migration’ (co-authored with Marina Carter), Modern Asian Studies, 2017, vol 51 (02), 462-484.

'Enslaved Lives, Enslaving Labels: reinterpreting the colonial Indian Labour Diaspora' (with M. Carter) in Sukanya Banerjee, Aims McGuinness & Steve McKay (eds.), New Routes for Disapora Studies (Indian University Press, 2012)

'The State and Subaltern Assertion in the Diaspora: Towards a Pan-South Asian Identity?’ in H. Bhattacharyya, A. Kluge, L. Konig (eds), The Politics of Citizenship, Identity and The State in South Asia (Heidelberg Series in South Asian and Comparative Studies, New Delhi: Samskriti, 2012)

'Creating, Changing, and Recovering Community: an introduction to the annual conference edition of the British Association for South Asian Studies', Contemporary South Asia, Volume 18, Issue 1, 2010

Empire and Locality: a Global Dimension to the 1857 Indian Uprising' (with M. Carter) Journal of Global History, 5 (2010), 51-73

'Religion and retribution in the Indian rebellion of 1857',  Leidschrift. Empire and Resistance. Religious beliefs versus the ruling power  24-1 (2009), 51-68

‘Conjuring images of India in nineteenth century Britain’ (with P. Lamont), Social History, 32, 3, pp 309-325 (2007)

'Introduction' (pp xi-xxvi) & 'The Development of Panchayati Raj'’ * (pp 169-184), in C. Bates and S. Basu (eds.), Rethinking Indian Political Institutions (London: Anthem Press, 2005). (*Also reprinted in Sudha Menon (ed.), Panchayati Raj: Perspectives and Experiences (Hyderabad: Icfai University Press, 2007), pp. 3-23)

‘Introduction’ (pp 1-18), and ‘Human Sacrifice in Colonial Central India: Myth, Agency and Representation’ (pp 19-54) in C. Bates (ed).), Beyond Representation: constructions of identity in colonial and postcolonial India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005).

'Courts, ship rolls and letters: reflections of the Indian labour diaspora', in Creating an Archive Today, Toshie Awaya, ed. (Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 21st COE Programme, Centre for Documentation & Area-Transcultural Studies, 2005 ).

'Selves and Others: reflections on sports in South Asia' (co-authored with G. Armstrong) Contemporary South Asia (2001) Vol. 10, pp. 191-205

Communalism and Identity among South Asians in Diaspora (Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics, no. 2, August 2000).

Coerced and migrant labourers in India: the colonial experience, Edinburgh Papers in South Asian Studies, no. 13, (Edinburgh: Centre for South Asian Studies, 2000).

 'Community, conflict and the dilemmas of identity among South Asians in diaspora', Asian Studies, vol. XVIII (nos. 1 & 2): Netaji Institute, Calcutta, December 2000.

'Race, caste and tribe in central India: the early origins of Indian anthropometry', in P. Robb (ed.), The Concept of Race in South Asia (Delhi, 1996), 219-59.

"Lost innocents and the loss of innocence": interpreting adivasi movements in South Asia ', in R.H. Barnes, A. Gray and B. Kingsbury (eds.), Indigenous Peoples of Asia (American Association for Asian Studies, Michigan, 1995), 103-19.

'Regional dependence and rural development in central India: the pivotal role of migrant labour', reprinted in D. Ludden (ed.), Agricultural Production and Indian History (New Delhi, 1995), 354-68.

'Class and economic change in central India: the Narmada valley, 1820-1930', in C.J. Dewey (ed.), Arrested Development in India: the historical perspective (Manohar, New Delhi: 1988), 241-82.

'Congress and the tribals', in C. Simmons and M. Shepperdson (eds.), The Indian National Congress and the Political Economy of India, 1885-1985 (London, 1988), 231-52.

 'Tribalism, dependency and the sub-regional dynamics of economic change in central India,' in C.J. Dewey (ed.), The State and the Market: studies in the economic and social history of the third world (New Delhi, 1987), 105-27.

'The nature of social change in rural Gujarat: the Kheda district, 1818-1918', Modern Asian Studies, 15 (1981), 771-821. This article has also been translated into Gujarati and republished in the journal Arthat.

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