Talk:Abhishek Kaicker

By Sachi Anjunkar

Abhishek Kaicker is Associate Professor in the Department of History at University of California, Berkeley, as of November 2022. According to his bio, his research focuses on questions of intellectual history and the history of concepts; early modern global history; religion, politics and the city; and more generally in the continuities between precolonial and postcolonial south Asia.

As per his bio, he has published no books, papers or research pertaining to Hindus, rights of Hindus, the impact or relationship between Islam and Hinduism / Hindutva, India or the Indian Government.

In 2021, he endorsed the "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference and made the allegation

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."

Publications related to India

Book Publications

1. Kaicker, Abhishek. The King and the People. Oxford University Press, 2020.

Essays

1. Kaicker, Abhishek. “‘Briskness in the Market of Shaikh-Dom’: The Commercialization of Piety in Early Eighteenth-Century Delhi.” History of Religions, vol. 61, no. 3, University of Chicago Press, Feb. 2022, pp. 243–78, https://doi.org/10.1086/717640.
2. Kaicker, Abhishek. “The Little Conquest of the Red Fort – by Abhishek Kaicker.” Journal18: A Journal of Eighteenth-Century Art and Culture, 11 June 2021, www.journal18.org/nq/the-little-conquest-of-the-red-fort-by-abhishek-kaicker/.
3. Kaicker, Abhishek. “Petitions and Local Politics in the Late Mughal Empire: The View from Kol, 1741.” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 53, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 21–51, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x17000312.
4. Kaicker, A. The Promises and Perils of Courtly Poetry: The Case of Mir ʿAbd al-Jalil Bilgrami (1660-1725) in the Late Mughal Empire. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 61(3), 2018, 327-360. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341454