Radha Kumar

• 2024 Fall
  • HST/SAS 372 Caste and Inequality in Modern India
  • HST 301 Practicum in the Study of History
• 2023 Fall
  • HST 301 Practicum in the Study of History
  • HST 371 Religion in South Asian Politics
• 2023 Spring
  • HST 122 Global History 1750 to Present
  • HST/SAS 329 Making of Modern India
• 2022 Fall
  • HST/SAS 328 Ancient and Medieval India
  • HST 301 Practicum in the Study of History
• 2022 Spring
  • HST/SAS 372 Caste and Inequality in Modern India
  • HST 122 Global History 1750 to Present

Radha Kumar is a historian of colonial and postcolonial South Asia, focusing on the Tamil-speaking regions of southern India. Her first book, "Police Matters: The Everyday State and Caste Politics in South India, 1900-1975" (Cornell University Press, 2021), draws on previously unexplored police records to examine the close ties between police and caste authority that were displayed at everyday as well as exceptional moments through much of the twentieth century.

She has commenced work on a second project on the Kaveri river dispute in southern India. The study will explore how colonial subjects and postcolonial citizens made their claims to water, and to political belonging, between the late-nineteenth and the early twenty-first centuries. At Syracuse, she teaches courses on global history, Indian history from the ancient period till the present day, and caste and religious politics in modern India. 

Currently, Radha is not accepting graduate students. 

• Book
  • Kumar, R., Police Matters: The Everyday State and Caste Politics in South India, 1900-1975. Cornell University Press, 2021.
• Journal Articles
  • Kumar, R., "Vacant Villages: Policing Riots in Colonial India." In India after World History: Literature, Comparison, and Approaches in Globalization. Bose, N. (ed.) Leiden University Press, 2022.
  • Kumar, R., "Witnessing Violence, Witnessing as Violence: Police Torture and Power in Twentieth-century India." In Law & Social Inquiry. , 2022.
  • Kumar, R., Police Matters: The Everyday State and Caste Politics in South India, 1900-1975. Cornell University Press, 2021.
  • Kumar, R., "Policing Everyday Life: The FIR in the Tamil Countryside, c. 1900-1950." In Indian Economic and Social History Review. , 2017.
  • Kumar, R., "Seeing Like a Policeman: Everyday Violence in British India, c. 1900-1950." In Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World. D., N. (eds.) Cambridge Imperial and Post-colonial Studies, 2017.
  • Kumar, R., "India’s Spectacular Criminals." In Awaaz: the voice of South Asia. , 2011.
  • Sriram, M. S., Kumar, R., "Conditions in which Microfinance has emerged in certain Regions." In Economic and Political Weekly. , 2007.
• Book Reviews
  • Kumar, R., Datta, V., "Making Officers out of Gentlemen: Military Institution-Building in India, c. 1900-1960." In Journal of Military History. , 2022.
  • Kumar, R., Ghosh, D., "Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919-1947." In Journal of Asian Studies. , 2020.
  • Kumar, R., Kudaisya, ., "A Republic in the Making: India in the 1950s by Gyanesh Kudaisya." In History: Reviews of New Books. , 2019.
• Newsletter
  • Kumar, R., "The Tamil Vote: Savvy or Starstruck?." India In Transition , 2024.

CASI, University of Pennsylvania, "Interpreting Jai Bhim: Police & Caste in Tamil Worlds" (April 12, 2023)

American Society of Environmental History Annual Conference, American Society of Environmental History, "Claims to Water: Building Dams and Subjects in British India" (March 22, 2023 - March 26, 2023)

Association of Asian Studies Annual Conference, Association of Asian Studies, "Unlawful Assemblies and Illegitimate state force in Independent India" (March 16, 2023 - March 19, 2023)

Law & Society Annual Conference, "New Books in South Asia Panel" (July 13, 2022 - July 16, 2022)

Syracuse University, "Police Matters – Book Talk with Lisa Mitchell" (February 22, 2022)

Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Policing & Electoral Politics in Postcolonial Madras" (October 22, 2021)

New Directions in the Study of Global Police Power Workshop, Middlebury College, "Male Streets, Female Participants: Policing and Politics in 20th century South India" (October 1, 2021)

Chicago Tamil Forum, "Policing, Community, and Capital in 20th century India" (May 14, 2021 - May 15, 2021)

South Asian Studies conference, Princeton University, "After Subaltern Studies" (2021)

South Asian Studies Colloquium, Yale University, "Police Matters – Book Panel" (2021)

Syracuse University, "Where are you? Call out to me’: The All-India Radio Urdu Service’s Letters of Longing" (2021)

The North American Conference on British Studies Annual Conference, "Policing the Colonial Economy: British India, 1900-1950" (November 7, 2020)

University of Victoria, "Vacant Villages: Policing Riots in Colonial India" (May 28, 2020 - May 31, 2020)

American Society of Environmental History Annual Conference, American Society of Environmental History, "Dams as Development: An Indian river in an Imperial Economy" (March 26, 2020 - March 28, 2020)

South Asia Speaker Series, Syracuse University, "Claiming Water: Building Dams and Subjects in Colonial India" (2020)

Law and Society Annual Meeting, "Policing Dissent in Neoliberal India" (May 30, 2019 - June 2, 2019)

Dept. of History Graduate Student Conference, Syracuse University, "Consumption, Exchange & Material Culture" (2019)

South Asia Curriculum Enhancement Grant , South Asia Center (May 15, 2024 - May 15, 2026)