Rupa Viswanath

Prof. Dr. Rupa Viswanath is a Professor of Indian Religions at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS) at the University of Göttingen. She also holds an Honorary Professorship in History at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh and is a Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. Currently (2022–2024), she serves as Director of the MS Merian International Center for Advanced Studies in New Delhi.

• Lead interdisciplinary research cluster on inequality and diversity
• Co-leader of Historical Sociology specialization in CeMIS Master's program
• Former faculty at University of Pennsylvania's Department of South Asian Studies

Her research interrogates the history of caste-as-slavery in South Asia, focusing on agrarian control, religious neutrality policies, and postcolonial caste-state entanglements. Key areas include:

• Caste-based violence and welfare systems
• Comparative racialization frameworks
• Mechanisms of social control in South/Southeast Asia
• Class power and state structure dynamics
• Contemporary governance of religious offense

The Roundtable on The Pariah Problem (Modern Asian Studies, 2021) and her 2014 monograph demonstrate how colonial governance reframed caste as a religious issue to avoid state intervention in agrarian exploitation. Her 2023 review of Rule of the Commoner extends this analysis to post-independence Dravidian politics, revealing tensions between caste reform rhetoric and structural continuities.

Scientific recognition includes:

• 2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title for The Pariah Problem
• Contributions to major journals like International Review of Social History and Comparative Studies in Society and History
• Academic book blurbs and policy-oriented writings

Her work connects Dalit struggles across regions through missionary-colonial archives and non-state actor analysis, while advocating for methodological rigor in studying subaltern histories without ventriloquism.