Sumit Guha

Sumit Guha is Professor and Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professorship holder in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin, College of Liberal Arts. He teaches courses including Indian Subcontinent (1750-1950), Indian Republic (1947-Present), European Empires in Asia, and Language and Power.

Guha received his BA from St. Stephen's College and MA in History from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. He earned his PhD in History from the University of Cambridge in 1981. His academic journey includes teaching positions at St. Stephen's College (1981-1996), Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (1996-1999), Brown University as S.P. Das Distinguished Professor (2000-2004), Rutgers University (2004-2013), before joining UT Austin in 2013.

Guha's research spans South Asian history with particular focus on collective memory, caste systems, tribal formations, language and power dynamics, and environmental history. His work challenges conventional historical narratives, particularly regarding caste in South Asia, questioning Louis Dumont's influential Homo Hierarchicus. He examines how historical memories are formed both within and outside professional history, analyzing the social frameworks that shape collective pasts. His research on language and empire explores how imperial systems managed linguistic diversity across West and South Asia, developing frameworks to understand language-power interactions from Persian empires through Mughal rule to British colonialism.

His recent publications demonstrate a consistent focus on long-term historical patterns across Asia, with particular attention to how social formations, political power, and cultural memory interact across centuries. His work increasingly examines pandemics and public health through historical lenses, as evidenced by his 2020 article on India in the pandemic age.

• Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professorship in History
• Joint editor of Modern Asian Studies

Guha has supervised numerous graduate students and maintains an active research agenda with ongoing projects on language and power in imperial settings. His work has been influential in South Asian studies, challenging established paradigms while building new frameworks for understanding identity, power, and historical memory in the region. He has served as a visiting scholar at institutions including the Centre for Development Studies, Yale University's Program in Agrarian Studies, and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

Guha maintains active scholarly networks across Asia and Europe, with research interests spanning historical epidemiology, legal pluralism in premodern contexts, and the political ecology of historical societies. His work bridges disciplinary boundaries between history, anthropology, linguistics, and political science.