Srijan Sandip Mandal

Assistant Professor of History

Srijan Sandip Mandal is a historian keen on researching and teaching legal history, the philosophy of history, and public history.

He developed his research interests over the nine years that he studied at the University of Hyderabad, where he earned an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in History as well as two awards – the Andhra Bank Medal for “having secured the first rank in the M.A. History examination” and the Dr. (Mrs.) Sheela Raj Memorial Medal for the “best Ph.D. thesis” of the year in History.

Dr. Mandal pursued his interest in the philosophy of history through his M.Phil. dissertation, which drew on Tipu Sultan’s historiography to demonstrate a Kantian epistemology of history.

In the same way, he pursued his interest in legal history through his Ph.D. thesis, which demonstrated that the restrictions on the right to freedom of speech and expression in the Constitution of India were deliberately designed to preserve colonial laws criminalising speech and expression.

He developed a keen interest in public history at the University of Hyderabad as well. Still, it was only at the Centre for Public History at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru, where he was on the faculty for five-and-a-half years, that he learnt about the discipline of public history. That is what led to his election to the Steering Committee of the International Federation for Public History as its Secretary for a four-year term in 2021.

He has presented his research on legal history to academic audiences in India and abroad and is currently preparing a book proposal based on that research. And his research on public history, he has (co)written about in an article for the journal Public History Review and in chapters for edited volumes, What is Public History Globally? (Bloomsbury, 2019) and Practices of Digital Humanities in India: Learning by Doing (Routledge, 2025).

Beyond academic audiences, he has presented his research on legal history to lay audiences as well through articles in The Print and Seminar and through a conversational video bot named ‘Hukam Singh’.

Education

  • 2011-2016  :  Ph.D. in History, University of Hyderabad
  • 2009-2011  :  M.Phil. in History, University of Hyderabad
  • 2007-2009  :  M.A. in History, University of Hyderabad
  • 2003-2006  :  B.Sc. in Hospitality and Hotel Administration, Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology, and Applied Nutrition, Kolkata

Awards/Fellowships

  • 2013-2016-Dr. (Mrs.) Sheela Raj Memorial Medal for the “best Ph.D. thesis” in History
  • 2012-2013-Junior Research Fellowship from the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi
  • 2010-Fellowship from the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi

Courses Taught

  • History II: Legal History of Modern India
  • The Roads Not Taken: Alternative Imaginaries of Constitution-Making
  • The End of Empire: Decolonisation in British India, 1942-47
  • Censorship in Context
  • History on Trial

Select Publications

  • “The Promise and Perils of Bot-Based Public History.” In Practices of Digital Humanities in India: Learning by Doing, edited by Maya Dodd and Nirmala Menon, 164-73. Abingdon: Routledge, 2025.
  • and Indira Chowdhury. “East of the West: Repossessing the Past in India.” Public History Review 24 (2017): 22-37. https://doi.org/10.5130/phrj.v24i0.5763.
  • “A ‘World System’ Stretched? The Case of the ‘Eurasian and African World Systems’.” In Networks in the First Global Age, 1400-1800, edited by Rila Mukherjee, Indian Council of Historical Research Monograph Series 11, 377-86. New Delhi: ICHR/Primus Books, 2011.

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